Outstanding Faculty Service Award for Professor Michael E. Tirrell

The Outstanding Faculty Service Award is given to a full-time faculty member whose service has significantly advanced the mission of Stonehill College. Education for citizenship is integral to a liberal arts education, and just as we expect our students to lead lives of purpose and to make a difference in the world, we expect the same from our faculty. Therefore, public service and service to the academic community are highly valued by the faculty at Stonehill College. This award recognizes a cumulative record of noteworthy accomplishment in service on the part of a faculty member. The recipient stands as a symbol of the entire faculty’s commitment to sustaining our community. In 2008 Stonehill College is proud to bestow the Outstanding Faculty Service Award on Professor Michael Tirrell.

Professor Tirrell’s commitment to Stonehill’s mission is abundantly clear to all who work with him. Here is what colleagues have to say about his work within his department and across the College.

Mike Tirrell is “Chair Extraordinaire.” He is one of the longest-serving chairs at the college, having served multiple terms over two separate periods. He is the first to complete any task that needs doing, first to volunteer extra help when needed. And it’s hard to know how he can always be out front when he’s always putting others first, whether that’s the student, the faculty colleague, or the College itself. And the quality of his work is impeccable—careful in its detail, generous in its spirit, tremendous in its scope.

Find me a committee this guy hasn’t served on! He has taken his turn at everything, but has most consistently focused on two particular areas—his department, where he is a long-standing chair—and the College Honor Society for students, Lambda Epsilon Sigma. In the former capacity, he has a department ready to name him “Chair for Life” because of the exceptional leadership he brings to executing their departmental mission. And in the latter capacity, he has spent two decades quietly getting the work of college-wide honors done: encouraging students, reminding faculty, heading the committee that carefully screens and chooses the students for honors, and planning the Honors Assembly, the invitations, and the reception. And he does this work joyfully, in the true spirit of service.

As a faculty member in his department, I see Mike using the role of Chairperson to anticipate our needs and to help each department member to achieve teaching and scholarly goals. In our enormous major, he is constantly handling student and faculty questions, but he always has a smile and never makes you feel you are burdening him. He makes this work seem like a labor of love; for example, his annual faculty reviews are like small works of art, filled with detailed observations and suggestions. He is genuinely altruistic, and there aren’t many people who approach life and work with unselfish interest in helping others.

I have worked with Mike Tirrell in a variety of settings since I joined the Stonehill community a few years ago. What I learned about Mike very quickly is that there is just one Mike. He does not have a persona for his professional life different from who he is beyond the campus. Rather, in every setting, what you see is his integrity, his ability to grasp the large picture and the small details, and his warm, caring and deeply engaged humanum. Service to his colleagues and students is not just a decision he makes but a value he lives.

And so with deep pride we today recognize Professor Michael E. Tirrell for his tireless service, consistent example, and exemplary contributions to Stonehill College

Given this 9th day of May,

Two thousand and eight.

Katie Conboy

Vice President for Academic Affairs