The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
DUNDEE GRADUATION Influential professor honoured
THE MAN who came up with the slogan Help Dennis Beat the Menace was honoured by Dundee University yesterday.
Professor Peter Howie was a key member of the Ninewells Cancer Campaign, whose public profile was raised by the use of the Beano character.
It went on to raise millions of pounds for research and treatment.
The campaign was one of the highlights of the professor’s career with the university and as a fundraiser for good causes.
He was conferred with an honorary degree in recognition of what vice-principal John Connell said had been the “very distinguished role” he played.
Giving a laureation at the last of the university’s graduation ceremonies in Caird Hall, Professor Connell said the high reputation of the medical school owed much to his innovation, enthusiasm and visionary leadership.
Professor Howie came to Dundee as professor of obstetrics and gynaecology in 1981.
“Within nine years of coming to Dundee, Peter had been elected to become dean of the faculty of medicine and dentistry and from 1990 onwards had a major role in driving the direction of the medical school and laying foundations that have allowed it to achieve the prominent success that it now enjoys,” Professor Connell said.
Professor Howie was instrumental in establishing what is now the Medical Research Institute and also helped review the medical curriculum.
He also led the bid to bring nursing and midwifery training to the university.
He became deputy principal in 1995, a post he held until retiring in 2001.
He has since led the local charity Tenovus, which has contributed more than £5 million to medical research and he also chairs the Mathew and Leng Trusts.
As a member of the Dow Trust he helped ensure its financial support for the medical school’s new clinical simulation centre.
Also among the honorary graduates yesterday was Anne Marie Rafferty, who hails from Fife and is now professor of nursing policy of the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery at King’s College, London. Dr Bernard Pecoul, executive of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative was also honoured.
It has collaborated with Dundee University’s drug discovery unit on treatments for the potentially- fatal disease leishmaniasis.
Among the last batch of graduates yesterday was Kate Porter, who was marking the successful completion of her dentistry degree. She was congratulated by her boyfriend Simon Ivinson. The pair met while Kate was studying in Dundee and Simon was studying in St Andrews. Kate has now enrolled in the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, while Simon is already serving in the Army.
The university has also announced the winners of the Sir James Black awards — named for the Nobel Prize winner — which go to a final-year undergraduate in each of the four colleges in recognition of their contribution to scholarship and research in their academic field.
Lord Naren Patel, chancellor of the university, said Rachelle Binny, Duncan Blues, Magdalena Grzeszczuk and Mary Duffy “have all produced truly outstanding work and they are fully deserving of this honour”.