Before I was here...

... with Professor Chris Whatley

Expelled at 16 for truanting but now faculty dean, Chris Whatley talks about his evolution from teenaged "rebel without a cause" to accomplished history professor.

Like many teenagers of the 60s, art, pop music and fashion dominated the young Chris' thoughts and he remembers with fondness summers spent on his uncle's island, Pabay in the Western Isles. His bohemian relatives' home provided an escape from the boredom of school and study in Glasgow.

But his expulsion from school at 16 after being "caught truanting with a pocket full of betting slips and a ticket to the picture house in Jamaica Street" jolted him into the real world.

"I was kicked out of school of on the Friday and was working as a salesman for Halfords by the following Monday - my mother made sure that if I wasn't at school I had to pay my own way."

After a year at Halfords, Chris joined the printworks of Collins publishers. While overtime hours provided him with enough cash to continue to enjoy the Glasgow youth scene - "music, drink and girls" - Chris was inspired by a boss who encouraged him to turn his mind to more challenging pursuits.

'The gaffer used to make me take home his copies of Socialist Worker and summarise the articles and we used to spend our breaks discussing politics. When the day came that I had been with Collins for two years and my foreman proudly told me that I had a job for life, it brought it home to me that I was made to do more."

After paying his own way through a crash course of Highers - the local authority wouldn't pay his fees because of his poor school attendance record - Chris was finally accepted into Strathclyde University, where he gained a degree and ultimately a PhD in economic history. While he still enjoyed a lively student social life, he became increasingly involved in student politics and was top of his year when he graduated with a 2:1 in 1972.

His involvement with politics continued following university when he became agent for the Labour party in Ayr. He first joined the history department here at the University of Dundee in 1979 and in 1986, influenced by his own experiences, he instigated the introduction of the University's part-time study courses.

He explained, 'One of the main reasons that I went into further education was because I am committed to educating those who don't have the opportunity to enjoy full-time study - there is so much talent going untapped."

Following a spell at the University of St Andrews where he moved from the study of economic to Scottish history, Chris returned to Dundee's history department in 1992 and was appointed department head three years later.

Now that Chris has recently become dean of the faculty of arts and social sciences - a post to which he was "flattered and excited" to be appointed - he hopes to expand the history department's recent success to the rest of the faculty.

"I aim to make this an opportunity for the faculty to develop even further over coming years and would like to think that some of factors which have brought the history department success such as the 5 rating from the QAA, can be disseminated into the rest of the faculty."

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