Three new Vice Presidents were nominated by the Council of the Catholic Union and approved at the Annual General Meeting:
- The Lord Craigmyle
- Dame Rachel de Souza DBE
- Professor Anthony McClaran.
Richard Collyer-Hamlin, Chair of the Catholic Union, says: “Each Vice President brings a wealth of expertise and support to the work of the Catholic Union as we continue to address the pressing challenges of the day. I am most grateful to them for accepting Council’s invitation to help the Union in this particular way. In addition, during the year, we were delighted to welcome Mary Glindon MP and Stephen Pound to the team”.
A list of the Catholic Union’s Vice Presidents can be found here.
The Chair paid tribute to the retiring Vice Presidents for their years of service (in some cases well beyond the expected term): Professor John J Haldane, John Deighan, Dr Terence Morris, Dr Tony Cole JP KCSG KC*HS and Alexander Stafford.
The Lord Craigmyle
After travelling, working and trading in the Middle East, Lord Craigmyle gave his time to SPUC and to the nascent Solidarność. He worked as a photographer and later as a sound recording engineer at CBS. He briefly returned to Lebanon for the Sovereign Order of Malta after the second Israeli invasion. His short time as a Crossbencher in the House of Lords was mostly used to draw attention to the effects of tax and welfare on family structures. Lord Craigmyle is the delegate to the UK for the Comunità dei figli di Dio, whose lay members live as “monks in the world”.
Dame Rachel de Souza DBE
Dame Rachel is a nationally recognised educator and advocate for improving the life chances of disadvantaged children. Before her appointment as Children’s Commissioner, she led two schools from failing to outstanding, before founding and leading the Inspiration Trust, a family of fourteen schools in East Anglia. The Trust was twice ranked as the nation’s top group of comprehensive schools based on pupil progress at GCSE. She was made a Dame in 2014 for services to education.
Dame Rachel was appointed Children’s Commissioner in 2021. The Commissioner has unique legislative powers, is an advocate for children across the country, and represents children’s needs across Government. In this role, Dame Rachel has completed the two largest-ever surveys of children, The Big Ask with over half-a-million responses and most recently, The Big Ambition. Dame Rachel is now building on the over a million voices she has captured directly, to present young people’s ideas to politicians and policy makers about how to make their lives better.
Professor Anthony McClaran, Vice-Chancellor, St Mary’s University
Professor of Higher Education Policy and Practice
Professor Anthony McClaran became the third Vice-Chancellor of St Mary’s University in April 2020, having returned to the UK from Australia, where he served as CEO of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) from 2015 to 2020. Prior to this role, Anthony was Chief Executive of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) from 2009-15 and Chief Executive of the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) from 2003-09. He has held a number of governance roles at all levels of education and was Chair of Council and Pro-Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire from 2007 to 2009. Anthony is currently Chair of GuildHE and in June 2021 was appointed by Pope Francis to the Board of AVEPRO, the Holy See’s HE quality assurance agency.
