Laureation address: Dr Fiona Hill

Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters
Laureation by Professor Richard Whatmore, School of History

Thursday 23 June 2022

Chancellor, it is my privilege to present for the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Dr Fiona Hill. 

Fiona Hill has had a busy life since graduating in History and Russian from this great university in 1987. There are five reasons why she merits this honour. 

Firstly, she has served as a peacemaker in war zones since the 1990s and has helped to prevent war when possible and to restore peace when conflict occurs. For such relentless and often unforgiving labours she ranks among the blessed. 

Secondly, she has been an intelligence analyst under Presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, guiding their policy during times of international turbulence. She was appointed by President Donald Trump as Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs on his National Security Council. For someone originally from the UK to rise to such heights signifies rarefied levels of expertise and diplomatic competence. All parties across the political spectrum have given her their trust. 

Thirdly, she was a key witness in the November 2019 House of Representatives hearings regarding the impeachment of President Trump; for such an act, in defence of the constitution of the United States and the health of that democracy she was praised but also widely trolled and threatened. Donald Trump has called her “a deep state stiff”, adding “with a nice accent” because of her north-east lilt. She has shown singular courage. 

Fourthly, she has become a notable public intellectual, exercising influence through her membership of the US Government’s Council on Foreign Relations and as a Senior Fellow at Brookings and entertaining us all with practical wisdom and good sense when talking to the likes of Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher or on Desert Island Discs. She shows what you can do with an outstanding education and that academics can make a difference in the real world. In addition, she writes super books. 
Fifthly and finally, she has risen from a position and a place that make her achievements all  the more notable. Her father was a miner turned hospital porter and her mother a midwife. As a child she lived in circumstances of love but relative poverty, lacking even a TV. She hails from a part of the world that does not get much attention, Bishop Auckland. The only nearby place you may have heard of is Barnard Castle, which briefly was in the news because Dominic Cummings checked his eyesight there before driving back to London when we were all supposed to be in lockdown. Bishop Auckland is in County Durham, it is mining country, suffering deindustrialization with the closing of the pits when Fiona was a child. If you look up famous people from County Durham you find Tony Blair, who was actually born in Edinburgh, and Rowan Atkinson, who went to the same school as Blair when a boy – the same one Cummings later attended too. Fiona attended a comprehensive school. She is a strong woman in a world of politicians and policy dominated by men and masculine rhetoric. She understands people and the ideologies that fire them, the dangerous in addition to the worthy. 

Let us praise then this singular woman who does honour to St Andrews, and who is an inspiration to all of us for her wisdom, bravery, and integrity. 

Chancellor, in recognition of her major contribution to international relations, politics and history, I invite you to confer the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, on Dr Fiona Hill.