Dr Maureen Farrell Receives Archdiocesan Medal
Maureen Farrell was recruited to St Andrew’s College in 1993 to the Department of Language and Literature led by Prof Jim McGonigal. From a distinguished family of teachers, Maureen arrived in the college from a successful career in English teaching, culminating in her appointment as Senior Teacher in St Andrew’s Secondary, Carntyne. She was also by then a mainstay of the celebrated choir of St Aloysius Church in Garnethill, which was and has remained her place of worship.
When Maureen arrived at the College, important long-term changes were already in train locally and nationally that would over the course of the 1990s alter forever the nature of teacher education and Catholic teacher education in Scotland, as the established teacher education institutions formed ever closer relationships with local universities. The department that Maureen had joined read the signs well in this and Maureen was afforded the opportunity to further her own academic studies in two areas close to her heart: Scottish Literature and Children’s Literature. This combination would culminate in the conferral of her PhD from the University of Glasgow some years later.
In the same period, Maureen also developed her growing interest and expertise in Catholic teacher education more broadly understood, collaborating creatively with subjects and colleagues across the curriculum. Professor Bart McGettrick and others soon recognised these levels of commitment and leadership and appointed Maureen to a key role in the management of the BEd Primary degree and the wider provision of initial teacher education.
From the outset, Maureen brought to these responsibilities the deep reserves of her Catholic faith, her intuitive collaboration with colleagues, her dedication to the pastoral care and spiritual wellbeing of the student population, and her fervent desire to see the teacher education programmes strengthen their Catholic mission by taking full advantage of the academic resources of the ancient university at which she herself had so fruitfully studied.
Such personal and professional investments have over the past 30 years and more yielded many rewards for teacher education at all levels. Maureen herself would be the first to insist that they are the work of many hands and depend integrally upon a culture of partnership inside and outside the institution typified by the work of the St Andrew’s Foundation, of which she remains a respected member. Nevertheless, students and colleagues, schools and local authorities, leaders of Church and university would all step forward unreservedly to recognise the individual contribution that Maureen Farrell has made over these many years to the success and the reputation of Catholic Education––from primary to secondary to tertiary; from undergraduate to postgraduate to doctorate; from Carntyne to Salamanca. And in Maureen’s retiral, after so much service, it is this lasting record of achievement that is been affirmed by Archbishop Nolan in awarding Maureen the Archdiocesan Medal.
Maureen Farrell received this award on 20 Sept 2024 during the 25th Anniversary of Catholic Teacher Education celebratory dinner at the University of Glasgow in the presence of its Principal and Vice Chancellor, Professor Anton Muscatelli and the Chair of the Board of Catholic Education, Bishop John Keenan.