From Ben Sachs

Sunday 9 May 2021

When I was living in New York, getting ready to move to Scotland to take up my new job at St. Andrews, I was of course really curious about what I was getting myself into. So I asked a friend of mine, who had spent some time in the philosophy department, what he thought of it. Honestly, I can remember only one thing he said; he said Katherine Hawley was a fantastic Head of School. I recall wondering to myself why he thought that that was worth mentioning. But it didn’t take long after I arrived to figure it out. Katherine was the perfect leader: she was open-minded, fair, and you could always tell she was listening to your opinion and taking it seriously. Even when her term was up we all looked to her to lead. More times that I can count, we would be at a meeting and find ourselves at an impasse, with everyone sitting around the table in silence, not knowing what to say that hadn’t been said already; then Katherine would speak up and suggest a way forward, and with relief we would all nod our heads and that would be it. It was a relief because everyone knew that Katherine wasn’t out for herself. So if she said we should do X, then that was because X was in our collective best interest.

Katherine’s selflessness, her community spirit, set the tone for the philosophy department. Whatever it was–showing up for social events like the department picnic, standing out in the freezing cold on the picket lines even though it was the more junior people who genuinely had something to gain from the strike, volunteering to organise our department’s hosting of the biggest annual British philosophy conference (a job that every other year falls to whoever is most junior in whichever department is hosting)–Katherine gave of herself for the good of the group.

On a more personal note, Katherine was there for me at every turn as I struggled to make my way in the world of professional philosophy. My first book?–Katherine helped me to write the prospectus that sold a publisher on the idea. My second book?–same deal. My promotion?–Katherine helped me to write my application. The first grant I was ever part of?–it was Katherine’s idea, and she took me along for the ride.

Katherine: You were the kind of colleague that everyone should be so lucky to have–a colleague I’ll now try to be for others. You’re irreplaceable, you’ll be missed, and you’ll never be forgotten.