Retirals

Engineering trio say goodbye after more than a century of combined service

The Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences have bid farewell to three academics who retired after working at the University for a combined total of 115 years.

Professor Sandy Fitzgerald, Harris Professor of Physics and former Head of the Electronic Engineering and Physics Division, Dr Robin Vaughan, former director of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Environmental Monitoring and lecturer Dr David Thompson retired in November 2005.

Professor Michael Davies, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences said, "Professor Fitzgerald, Dr Vaughan and Dr Thomson have each contributed greatly to physics and electronic engineering at the University of Dundee since its foundation."

"They all joined at around the same time and have witnessed many changes over the years. They will be sorely missed and I wish them all well in their retirement."

Professor Fitzgerald joined the university in 1968 as a lecturer. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Institute of Physics and the Royal Microscopical Society. During his distinguished career he has secured a number of research firsts in particular in the area of electron microscopy. He was awarded a DSc from Dundee in 1990 and is a former head of the Electronic Engineering and Physics Division.

Dr Vaughan has been a member of the academic staff at Dundee for 40 years. Elected a Fellow of the Remote Sensing Society in 1995 Dr Vaughan has held a number of posts at the University including reader in remote sensing and director of the Centre for Remote Sensing and Environmental Monitoring. Since 2003 he has also been a senior teaching fellow and a senior research fellow.

Dr Thomson joined the University as a lecturer 37 years ago. While at the University he co-founded the Power Systems Engineering and Management Group and ran an MSc in power engineering for many years. He also acted as advisor of studies and admissions tutor for Electrical Engineering. More recently his work has helped lay the foundations for developments in renewable energy.

University bids farewell to two welcoming voices

Two telephonists who were the welcoming voice of the university for an estimated one million callers over the past twenty years have hung up their telephones.

Margaret McRae, who spent the last 15 years of her 38-year university career on the switchboard, and Lilian McBean, who joined the switchboard staff on a temporary basis in 1983 and stayed for the next 22 years, were guests of honour at a retiral presentation in the River Rooms just before Christmas.

Telecoms Administrator Delia Gallagher, who presented Margaret and Lilian with their retiral gifts, said, "The switchboard is the university's first point of contact for over 12000 callers a month."

"Lilian and Margaret both have an immense amount of knowledge about the workings of the University, its departments and staff. They have always done an excellent job and will be missed."

Margaret began work in the clerk and treasurer's office of the Dundee Institute of Art and Technology in 1967 and on the institute's dissolution in 1975 transferred to Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art as a cashier. In 1990 she became a telephonist at the College of Art and stayed on the switchboard following the merger with the University of Dundee in 1994. In 2005 she made the final of 11 office moves when she transferred to the centralised telephony service in the Information and Communications Services Building in Park Place.

Lilian began her telephony career with Post Office Telephones in 1957 and joined the university in 1983. In the early days of her career Lilian operated a cord switchboard where she physically had to plug calls in and when she started at the university there were only around 500 extension numbers whereas now there are 3500.