This small monument to Manuel Leite Monteiro is as discreet as he would like it to be; but is also as indispensable as the School needs it to be. It is crucial for our future that the example of Manuel is both known and imitated.
One of our best undergraduate students, he then got his PhD’s in Louvain and came back as Professor. He not only excelled in teaching, mostly in the not so easy courses of Statistics and Public Economics, but also developed relevant research in the fields of Applied Microeconomics and Labour Markets.
In a School of great Professors and researchers, this is common. What made Manuel an outstanding personality was his dedication and devotion to the operations of the School, where he was almost without peer. A member of successive Dean’s Offices, he was always in charge of the most intricate, difficult and inconspicuous issues, from the budget to the accreditation of the School, from international relations to special projects and pre-experience programs. There is no count on the nights he spent in his office toiling away.
Nevertheless, in spite of all the high quality and deep commitment of his work, the most important qualities he had, were his constant smile, his attentive silence, his continuous effort to be useful, to mend fences and make peace. His unexpected and untimely death left a hole in the School that cannot be fulfilled. But his memory and example live on in us, his colleagues.