Love of philosophy spurs chair gift
From left to right: Rose Besen-McNally ’19, Jay McNally ’84 and his partner Teresa Tierney, and Lily Besen-McNally ’20.
By Rob Levin
A College of the Atlantic alum who was one of the driving forces behind the technology that helped expose the biggest corporate securities fraud of the 21st century is behind the creation of a new academic chair in philosophy at College of the Atlantic.
Jay McNally ’84, whose data analytics software played a key role in uncovering important details of the notorious Enron scandal, said that endowing The McNally Family Chair in Human Ecology and Philosophy is one way of making sure that current and future COA students are exposed to many of the same ideas that influenced the early years of the college.
“Important elements of the COA curriculum, like transdisciplinarity, self-directedness, or experientiality, there are philosophical issues that are tied to that, and those issues have greatly influenced my life and career. I have felt unconstrained,” McNally said. “I was encouraged at COA to question and analyze and be responsible with my activities, but to explore the territory and make the connections that were important to me.”
Philosophy and ethics, McNally said, underpin science, business, and culture. This vital, interdisciplinary role makes this area of study especially important to COA students as they navigate their self-designed academic paths, he said.
“Philosophy is one of the mirrors that helps let us know who we are. In a way it’s also a compass that tells us where we are going. It tells us what the nature of the world is, and in a certain way keeps us honest,” McNally said. “Understanding ethics and morality is a key way that we, as individuals or as cultures, can make determinations on why we do the things we do.”
Dr. Heather Lakey ’00, MPhil ’05 is the inaugural holder of the McNally Family Chair. As an undergraduate and graduate student at COA, through a second master’s degree at University of Oregon and the doctoral program at University of Maine, Lakey deeply understands the importance of philosophy to an interdisciplinary education.
“Because human ecology studies the relationships between human beings and their natural, cultural, and constructed environments, it is imperative that we think carefully about these concepts and their complex interrelationships. What do we mean by human? What distinguishes a natural environment from a cultural or constructed one? Philosophy provides intellectual resources to productively engage these questions and to imagine new ways to theorize these relationships,” Lakey said. “It is an honor to be appointed to this position and I am grateful to the McNally family for enshrining philosophy as a core part of COA’s curriculum.”
Studies in philosophy and ethics drove McNally’s success with Ibis Consulting, his pioneering electronic discovery firm that worked on the Enron case, he said, and his self-directed COA education continues to influence his interactions with the professional world.
“There are always ways to push the direction of an investigation rather than follow the evidence, but the idea of morality and ethics and the ability to look at yourself in the mirror and know that you were an honest and truthful broker is one of the reasons I became popular among influential people to handle these things,” he said. “Conducting complex legal investigations required the ability to talk to a lot of people from very different perspectives, including law, technology, and business. At COA I learned how to learn, and I learned how to work with other people.”
The McNally Family Chair is established in honor of the graduation of McNally’s daughters, Rose Besen-McNally ’19 and Lily Besen-McNally ’20, from COA. Rose is currently a graduate student at University of Maine, and Lily is enrolled in a graduate program at Maine College of Art.
Jay McNally has served the college as a trustee since 2002. He previously helped create, endow, and instruct in COA’s sustainable business program, helped fund a chair position in the humanities, and founded the Russo Scholarship, in honor of his grandparents, Rose and Michael Russo.
“As a college that has very deep intellectual roots, it’s important to make sure that the education at COA never becomes superficial, that we continue to question everything, that we continue to examine the world in deep detail, and that we continue to look for connections in disparate areas,” he said. “The McNally Family Chair is one of the things that will allow us to do that in perpetuity.”
