Professor Steve Smith

Professor Steve Smith (left) is presented with a commemorative scroll by the University's President, Sir Emyr Jones Parry.

The presentation of Professor Steve Smith as Honorary Fellow by Mr Richard Morgan on Thursday 15 July 2010.

Barchus Lywydd ac Aelodau’r Ymgynulliad

The award of a fellowship is the highest honour which this University can bestow.  I am grateful for the opportunity which the University has given me today to present Professor Steve Smith for this award – an award which I know Professor Smith cherishes immensely and an award which is so richly deserved. 

In presenting Professor Smith to you today I do so primarily in terms of his academic achievements.  He does, of course, have interests outside of academia, one of which is that he is a passionate supporter of Norwich City Football Club – a passion which he shares with none other than Delia Smith.  Henceforward whenever Delia Smith appears on our television screens will give us the opportunity of remembering Steve Smith and his achievements.

In the best tradition of sermonising I have tried to summarise Professor Smith’s contribution under three headings.  Had I not been accustomed to this tradition I would have learnt it from the years which you and I spent together on committees here in Aberystwyth when I became accustomed to the phrase ‘I want to make three points’ as the opening preamble to his contribution to the discussion.

The three contributions I want to focus on are
1. his contribution to the advancement of Aberystwyth as a place of HE during his time here between 1992 and 2002
2. his contribution to the development of the discipline of International Relations
3. his current role in the leadership of Higher Education, both in terms of being VC at Exeter University and currently President of Universities UK – the representative body for the executive heads of UK universities and umbrella group for the University sector.

Professor Steve Smith came to Aberystwyth in 1992 as Professor of International Politics.  In 1995 he assumed the Headship of the Department and in 1999 became one of two Pro Vice Chancellors, taking responsibility for academic affairs across the University.  These were years in which the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth developed from being a strong department, best known for work in the area of strategic studies, into a centre of world leading excellence in research and training.  As a result of changes made in the 1990s the Department became a major centre for doctoral work in the field and was top ranked for research in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise.  The enduring character of Steve Smith’s contribution (and of those who followed him) can be seen in the department being ranked in the most recent RAE as the third best in all of Politics and International Studies, and the leading Department in the field of International Politics.

Between 1999 and 2002 and before moving to become Vice Chancellor at the University of Exeter, Professor Steve Smith served as Pro Vice Chancellor of this University.  A onetime President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, in a mood of anguish and exasperation is believed to have castigated his policy advisers.  Why?  Because he was totally fed up with people who kept telling him:  ‘on the one hand  ...  but on the other’.  Whilst we could easily empathize with Hoover’s frame of mind, he was, of course, being somewhat unrealistic in his demands.  We have to recognise that problems are complex, that there are not straightforward solutions, that all strategies carry different degrees of risk and that the future is about accommodating change and making choices.  Such choices and such changes will not satisfy everyone.  This was the environment which faced Steve Smith when he became Pro Vice Chancellor in 1999 and to that environment he brought vision and commitment – instilling something of a culture change which saw Aberystwyth’s opportunity to develop as a research-led university realised to a greater extent than had been the case previously.  Professor Smith, I am pleased to have this opportunity of thanking you for all that you did during your time at Aberystwyth.

When individuals are chosen to lead their institutions and, in Steve Smith’s case, that leadership extends beyond Exeter to include all universities in the UK, they are chosen because they have demonstrated the key skills of management and leadership which are essential.  But we tend to forget that such people are first and foremost, academics and that in reaching the pinnacle of university leadership they have also reached the pinnacle in their respective disciplines.  I want now to say something about Professor Steve Smith as a scholar of International Politics.  He has contributed to or written 13 books, 100 academic papers and has given over 150 academic presentations in 22 countries.  For a period of nearly twenty years Professor Smith served as editor of the highly distinguished Cambridge Series in International Relations.  In 2001 he became only the second UK academic to be elected President of the International Studies Association in the USA.  In 2000 he was elected Academician of the Academy of the Learned Societies in the Social Sciences.  In 1999 he was the first recipient of the Susan Strange Award of the International Studies Association for the person who has most challenged the “conventional wisdom and intellectual and organisational complacency in the international studies community”.  In 2009 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  Recognition by other universities – honorary degrees from the Universities of Southampton and the West of England and an honorary professorship from Jilin University in China – speak volumes for the esteem in which Professor Smith is held within the academic community throughout the world.

I turn thirdly, and finally, to Steve Smith’s role as a leader within higher education in the UK.  Following three years’ service as Chair of the 1994 Group of Universities, Professor Smith was elected in 2009 to the Presidency of Universities UK.  This is indeed an honour, but with every honour comes its responsibilities, especially at a time when universities are being challenged to do more and more and when the funding of universities (like other public institutions) is under serious threat.  These are indeed challenging times but it is comforting to know that the leadership of UK universities is in such capable hands – without sacrificing those essential attributes which a university education is all about.  In a recent address given here in Wales, Professor Smith noted a number of these attributes.  For now I want to mention only three – confronting prejudice and promoting diversity, social mobility and widening access and thirdly, and most importantly transformation.  To use Professor Smith’s own words
“for whatever the benefits that accrue to Society at large, the clearest benefits of Higher Education are experienced by the student.  It is a matter of broadened horizons and emboldened ambitions.   It is about discovering yourself in a different environment and being taken out of your comfort zone of close friends and family”

Professor Steve Smith – we thank you for what you have done for Aberystwyth, we wish you well in your continued stewardship at the University of Exeter and we offer you every good wish and support in the continuation of your leadership role with Universities UK.

Barchus Lywydd, mae’n hyfrydwch gennyf gyflwyno yr Athro Steve Smith i’w urddo yn Gymrawd er Anrhydedd ym Mhrifysgol Aberystwyth.

Richard H Morgan
July 2010

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