'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'I don’t believe that talent resides predominantly among males, or among the upper classes.'

-- Our colleague, Dr. Louise Richardson (right), in an interview with The New York Times on the occasion of her installation last week as Principal (that is, President) and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, an appointment about which IntLawGrrls earlier posted. The arrival from Harvard of Richardson -- an expert on terrorism (prior IntLawGrrls book review) and an Irish-born woman who is also a Catholic and a naturalized U.S. citizen -- apparently continues to raise eyebrows at the 600-year-old institution, which, the Times reports, "has been presided over not only by a man but a British man, and a Protestant (since the Reformation, of course)." There is, for instance, a kerfuffle over the fact that the ban on women at the world-famous St. Andrew's golf club precludes it from extending to her an honorary membership. Richardson put such fuss nicely in its place with these words:

'I see it as a distraction. I’m here to run a university.'

International Principal

Kudos to our colleague, Dr. Louise Richardson (right), just appointed to lead the University of St. Andrews, a top Scottish institution north of Edinburgh.
Richardson will hold the title of Principal and Vice Chancellor; that is, President. She'll thus become the 1st woman to head 1 of Scotland's "ancient universities" (St. Andrews was founded in the 1400s).
As posted last year in our review of her book, What Terrorists Want (2006), Louise is an expert on the causes of terrorism and counterterrorist strategies. She's served most recently as Executive Dean at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, where she has also been a member of the political science faculty and from which she earned her Ph.D. Following graduation from Trinity College Dublin, the native of Tramore, County Waterford, Ireland, began her postgraduate studies at UCLA's Political Science Department, from which she earned an M.A. (credit for photo by Corinne Pickering)

Heartfelt congratulations and best of luck with this venture!