A few words on Lewis L. Glucksman from Joe Lee

Text of the introductory address
delivered by Professor J. J. Lee
on 11 May 2002 at University College Cork
on the occasion of the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa,
on Lewis L. Glucksman

A Sheansailéir, a Árd Mhaor agus a mhuintir na hOllscoile

Cuis áthais dom Lewis L. Glucksman a chur in aithne dibh, agus muid ag ceiliuradh bronnadh na céime onórai seo air inniu.

‘We had the experience but missed the meaning’, mused T. S. Eliot. Lew Glucksman has always drawn meaning from his experience. A striking unity emerges from even so diverse a range of activity, a pattern of action informed by thought, and of thought honed and disciplined by immersion in the crucible of action.

The love of the sea, acquired from life in the navy during and after the Second World War, translated into service as a Commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, one of the largest public institutions in the United States, into support too for the Virginia Institute of Maritime Studies, and for the capaciously conceived Map Library of TCD.

His redoubtable record in the world of high finance, whether in chairing his own investment bank, or as Chairman or President or CEO, and regularly Finance and Audit Committee member, in firms as renowned as Lehman Brothers, Smith Barney, Revlon, and many others, has earned him a legendary reputation on Wall Street, translating in turn into service to his alma matres, as a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of William and Mary, the Board of Trustees and Finance Committee of New York University, Professor of Finance in the Graduate Business School of NYU, and member of the Advisory Board of our own National Treasury Management Agency at the invitation of the then Minister for Finance, Bertie Ahern.

A man of the boat, and a man of the Bourse, then, but above all, a man of the book — with a love of culture in general, and literature in particular, that led him to Ireland, translating into the Glucksman Chair for Literature; the Glucksman Reading Room; and a funding drive for the Library, at the University of Limerick: translating further into support for the new Millennium Wing of the National Gallery.

Translating too, into Glucksman Ireland House of New York University. I had just begun thinking about this address when I happened to be watching a program on Teilifis na Gaeilge about a Brooklyn-based artist, Elizabeth O’Reilly, born in Cork. Up on the screen came that well-loved House, just before Fifth Avenue issues into Washington Square, with the lens zooming in on the plaque that reads Lewis L. and Loretta Brennan Glucksman Ireland House, for it is a joint creation of himself and Loretta, his wife, support, and partner extraordinaire, herself tireless in philanthropic endeavor for Irish culture, not least as Chair of the American Ireland Fund.

Glucksman Ireland House featured in that program because Elizabeth O’Reilly felt a need to rediscover the language she had lost, and she turned to the Irish classes in Glucksman Ireland House, which, incidentally, are regularly oversubscribed. Irish language courses are but one feature of a cultural milieu that has become, within a decade, a conduit for the best of Irish culture, North and South, to flow into the American mainstream, and for the best of American culture, in all its exuberant ethnic variety, to enrich in turn an Irish culture that has the confidence and composure to welcome all, to learn from all, but to yield to none, blending scholarship with style, and energy with elegance, in the gracious ambience of Glucksman Ireland House.

The historian, without seeking to simplify a complex historical record, may perceive in the joining together in the very name of Glucksman Ireland House a felicitous association of two highly creative immigrant peoples to America, in both of whom, making appropriate allowance for rhetorical romanticisation, a love of learning had survived even their darkest days, and both of whom too came with ample cause to know their genealogy, an association of names moreover that now resonates in universities from Cork to Jerusalem.

The very idea of the university itself is nowadays, of course, a subject of intense debate. Central to that debate is the relation between business and the university. We have much to learn from that fusion of intellect and imagination, of thought and action, that has inspired Lew Glucksman to visualize a future of rapid change that is nonetheless rooted in, rather than reneging on, a cultural heritage beyond price.

Lew Glucksman has touched nothing to which he hasn't made a difference. A steadfast man, he knows who he is and he does it his way. Happily,Ireland is a large part of that way. Now that he has come to live in Cork, in the process refurbishing, indeed rejuvenating, a great house and garden, we can welcome him as an honorary Corkman. For if he has already put us in his debt by accepting the Chair of the Cork University Foundation Board, whose role is so crucial to the future of the university, and thus of Cork itself, he comes bearing no greater gift than the presence of Loretta and himself amongst us.

A Sheansailéir, nil sé ar mo chumas, agus mé ag druidim chun deiridh, ach blas beag bideach a thabhairt de’n mhéid ata déanta ag an bhfear seo chun saol cultúrtha agus saol intleachtúla na hEireann a chothu, i bhfus agus i gcéin.

For his use of his own talents, and for having opened so many doors for so many others to develop their talents in the world of learning, it is an honor to present Lewis L. Glucksman to the Chancellor of the National University of Ireland for the conferring of the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.

Praehonorabilis Cancellarie, Totaque Universitas:

Praesento vobis, hunc meum filium, quem scio tam moribus, quam doctrina habilem et idoneum esse qui admittatur, honoris causa, ad gradum Doctoratus in utroque Jure, tam Civili quam Canonico, idque tibi fide mea testur ac spondeo, totique Academ iae.