Member Profile - Robert Cormack FRSE

In brief:

• Member of Leith Rotary since: 2018
• Rotary Hall of Fame: Convenor of Community & Vocational Committee 22-23 Leith Rotary Club Pop-Up Charity Shop at Ocean Terminal
• Specialist interest / skill: fostering community spirit, after a career of building connections in divided communities.

“It’s up to organisations like Rotary to try to promote community spirit and, in particular, to help try to look after the most vulnerable in our community.”

The spirit of community has been central to Robert Cormack’s life, and his academic career speaks volumes about his deep commitment to equality and human rights, a passion he keeps alive in retirement as a member of Leith Rotary Club.

Robert has had close experience of divided and fractured communities. His work at Queen’s University of Belfast during “The Troubles” of the 1970s and 80s, and his research into equal access to employment and education, shows great personal resilience in questioning and exploring community experience while he made his way up the academic ladder as a Professor, Dean and then Pro-Vice Chancellor. Nevertheless, he found time to chair the Belfast Citizens’ Advice Bureau and work for the Council of Europe.

Robert’s expertise in higher education pushed many boundaries. After the war in Kosovo he was part of a Council of Europe / World Bank project to reshape the University of Pristina.  Then, on leaving Queen’s, he led the fledgling University of the Highlands and Islands, leading it through its second decade as an innovative institution bringing further and higher educational opportunities to many of Scotland’s distant communities through the power of the internet and the collaboration of 13 local colleges. He was made a Fellow of UHI by the Princess Royal, the Chancellor of the university, in 2011, two years after his retirement.

Robert’s academic recognition has extended from University of Edinburgh to University of Cape Breton with honorary degrees, and he is also a Fellow and trustee of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; and a trustee of the Council of the David Hume Institute.

These days, he is down to earth in a very real sense, as a member of the Scottish Mineral and Lapidary Society, enjoying slicing and making jewellery from rock.

After such a high-profile life and career, Leith Rotary Club is now the means by which Robert keeps his passion for community development alive. His connection with the Rotary began with his father’s membership of the Montrose Rotary Club. “Montrose Rotary held a ‘Sons and Daughters’ Day’ every Christmas – I still have wonderful photos of these events,” Robert remembers, as well as his dad disappearing off to visit local Rotary Clubs on their family holidays.

Robert moved to Leith in 2018 and joined Leith Rotary Club. Soon afterwards, he found himself leading the Community and Vocational Committee in running the Club’s pop-up charity shop in Ocean Terminal in 2022-23. “We raised a considerable amount of money but, I think, we all felt it was extremely hard work – organising donations, pricing them, finding tables and racks to display goods and then organising rotas to keep the shop going” Robert recalls. “But we also had fun!”

Robert’s commitment to community is unwavering. His life experience, and his connections with Italy, continue to fuel his ambitions for Leith Rotary’s role in our community:

“Rotary is a great organisation. Its international work has been exceptional particularly the end polio campaign and the ‘Shelter Boxes’. However, I’m particularly interested in what we can do to enhance the sense of community in Leith. I spend a fair part of the year in Italy. The sense of community in Italy and Scotland is quite different. At a national level Italy is a basket-case with 69 governments since WWII (mind you we’re not far behind in recent years). But, at the community level it functions extremely well: potholes are filled, hedgerows trimmed, community choirs and orchestras sustained, festivals organised etc. In Scotland over the years, we’ve centralised more and more activities and responsibilities and, in the process, lost a sense of people working together to sustain and enhance their local communities. In Leith we have many hard-working community groups who are not well supported by City Council and the national government. It’s up to organisations like Rotary to help try to promote community spirit and, in particular, to try to look after the most vulnerable in our community.”

(More on Wikipedia)