Pat Morgan's smile as she enters Aras Failte in the heart of NUI Galway is warmly enthusiastic. Her recent elevation to dean of the science faculty has left her as undaunted, energy-filled and human as ever.
The only female dean of science in the Republic is a Galway woman herself, and she expresses chagrin that she missed the recent AllIreland football triumph. The city is still decked in purple and white as she speaks. Unfortunately, she was in Finland on an exchange on the big day. "I was emotionally but not physically present," she says.
Morgan began her third-level studies in NUI Galway where she did a BSc in biochemistry and she "stayed to do her PhD". Then, it was off to the University of Wisconsin to do some postdoctoral work in the field of embyrology. That stage where one cell contains all of the information to become an animal is particularly intriguing, she says. Initially, when she went to the US, she was somewhat embarrassed to have to own up to having attended her local university at home. NUI Galway (then UCG) was "a small college in my local town in the west of Ireland, and I had no sense that the education I got equipped me to go into the world", she says.
Now, she has a "tremendous sense that I can compete anywhere and that is something that I wanted to bring back to our students. If you're good enough here you're good enough anywhere. I'm immensely proud to be a graduate of this university and immensely grateful to have got my education here."
It was a deliberate decision to return home that brought her back to a lectureship in the physiology department of NUI Galway. Her husband, who completed his PhD in the US, returned to a lecturing post in the physics department of the college. When they came back in early 1990s the biotechnology course had just begun. Pat Morgan became director of the course which has been extremely successful.
"I think we have a tremendous science faculty here and that's why I am interested in being the dean." The faculty consists of 1,450 undergraduates, 290 postgraduates, 105 academic staff, 61 technical staff and 20 administrative and clerical staff. In all, there are 11 departments in the faculty. "The faculty office comprises of dean, administrator, executive assistant and secretary - so there are others to share the load," say Morgan.
A dean's job is regarded as being time-consuming, she says cheerily. It's about developing policies and looking to the future of the faculty. It's also about dealing with students in difficulties. "Another thing I particularly welcome is going into schools to represent the external face of the faculty . . . going out and meeting people who are interested in science - not just biotechnology but anything from genes to machines."
Appointed last July, her new post means Morgan will be involved in the development of new courses. She is also interested in developing international links, both bringing students to NUI Galway and sending people abroad.
Her vision of science education is a holistic one. "It's important that scientists should be able to express their opinions and argue their point. In a rapidly changing scene you can't learn all you need for the next 30 years. What you need is to gain the tools to evaluate new ideas and incorporate them into your existing knowledge base." It's about helping students to come up their own ideas and getting them to support them, using scientifically based evidence that supports the hypothesis, she says. "You know you have succeeded when they are independent of you."
