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SMURFIT SCHOOL ALUMNUS OF THE YEAR
When the Smurfit School was selecting its Alumnus of the Year to coincide with its Centennial celebrations,
there could really be only one candidate: the ‘academic entrepreneur’ whose tireless efforts led to the first
MBA course in UCD – and in Europe, Professor Michael MacCormac
I
RELAND and UCD were very different places when Prof EuropeanProductivityAgency(EPA)missiontolookatbusiness
MichaelMacCormacgraduatedwithaBCommfromUCD schoolsintheUS.“HementionedittoUCD.Iwastheonlyper-
in 1947, along with his future wife, Pat. “The BComm was son available, so they sent me. It was a marvellous opportunity
treatedwithdisdaininthosedays,itwasthelowestrungof because it was to a graduate school in the States to start with,
the ladder,” recounts the retired academic. While the aca- Syracuse,whichwasagreatuniversity.”
demic hierarchy had little regard for business and commerce, Over the five-month trip, the group visited all the great busi-
preferring to focus on economics and accounting, MacCormac nessschools,fromHarvardtoMITtoWharton,andMacCormac
quickly broke the mould with his firm belief that business edu- as secretary to the group wrote up all the reports. On the trip
cationwaskeytoIreland’sfuturesuccess. back on the Queen Elizabeth, the seeds for today’s MBA were
Having completed an MA in economics at UCD, a commerce planted. “I decided to do a memorandum on what I thought
bursaryofIR£150allowedhimtogoontotheLondonSchoolof couldbedoneinabusinessschoolhereandIstucktoit.”
Economics (LSE), where they had just launched a postgraduate After several years of pushing closed doors and coming up
diplomainbusinessstudies,anewconceptatthetime,whenthe against senior academics who “just didn’t want to know”, the
emphasisinbusinesseducationtendedtobeonaccountancyand UCD president at the time, Michael Tierney, finally gave in to
economics,herecalls. MacCormac, and decided he should be given the opportunity to
It was here that he was definitively ‘converted’ to business put his ideas for a postgraduate business studies course into
studies. “I joined as the only Irish person with a gang of action.“Hesaidyoucandoitontheconditionthatifitfailsyou
Europeans, people from Scandinavia and Germany and all sort leavetheuniversity.”
ofplaces,aswellasEnglishpeople.Therewereonly14ofus,we MacCormac took up the challenge and recruited one full-time
had a marvellous time, and we had the top professors in the memberofstaff,AnthonyCunningham,whohadrecentlyreturned
LSE. I learned an enormous amount from people like Lionel from Cornell. Today Cunningham describes MacCormac as “a
Robbins,whowasthetopEuropeanacademicatthetime.” great academic entrepreneur, who drove the development of
While business studies had become his passion, on his return, business education in Ireland”. It seems a very fair description.
faced with no job and the economic realities of the Fifties in Together with Cunningham and “one or two other part-timers”,
Ireland,MacCormacqualifiedasanaccountantandworkedinhis he saw the part-time MBA advertised for the first time in 1964,
father’sfirmforatime,buthisheartwassetontheacademiclife. with 200 applicants for just 14 places. Among the successful
Hewassoonlecturingpart-timeatEarlsfortTerrace,althoughnot applicantsweresomewell-knownfaces–RichardHooper,Tom
in his beloved business studies. No mean scholar herself, his wife TonerandEndaHession,tonameafew.Therest,astheysay,is
Pat was on hand to offer support. “I was asked to lecture in eco- history.
nomicgeographyaboutwhichIknewnothing,absolutelynothing! As an academic with a passion for the real workings of the
PatmadeupallthenotesandIdisheditout.Itworkedverywell.” business world, on his retirement from lecturing, MacCormac
Hewentontogiveonelectureaweektothird-yearcommerce wassooningreatdemandintheprivatesectorandservedonthe
students,andfromtherehisresponsibilitiesgraduallyexpanded. boardsofIrishShell,BordnaMónaandBrownThomas,aswell
“Igotalittlebitofabridgeheadintothedegreeand,fromthere, as chairing the boards of Green Property and First National
I began to argue for an expansion of the business side of the BuildingSociety.
commerce degree.” At the time, the BComm at UCD had few MacCormac says he was “astounded” when he got the call to
champions,withmanyatthetopeventalkingofitsabolishment say he had been selected as Alumnus of the Year, something he
and replacement with a Bachelor of Economic Science, recounts describes as a great honour. He is also deeply proud of the UCD
MacCormac,whowasdeadsetagainsttheidea. School of Business and his place in its heritage. His deep-felt
It was only when the then professor of commerce, Barney belief in the vital role for business education has not faded
Shields,retiredthatMacCormacgotthebreakwhichwouldleadto throughtheyears.
commercegainingatruechampionatUCD,albeitstillpart-time. “Ithinkthatthroughtheactivitiesoftheschool,wecaninject
“ThedealwasthatIwouldteachaccountancyandeconomics, and that ethical behaviour into business that is so terribly impor-
little bits of commerce. So that I did for a number of years and tanttoday,andpromotetheformationofstrategyforthefuture
taughtallsortsofpeople,suchasLaurenceCrowleyandAlexSpain.” in a business world that is developing and changing fast,” he
Fortune struck again when the Minister for Commerce at the concludes.
time, William Norton, was looking for somebody to go on a Ann O’Dea
UCD BUSINESS CONNECTIONS 31
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