Ninth Level Ireland

“An overbearing ‘email culture’ and a shortage of staffrooms and areas where people can meet and chat are being blamed for hindering internal communications in universities. In addition, communications directors consider academic managers to be much weaker at communicating with staff than their counterparts in purely administrative roles. The initial findings of a sector-wide research project led by the University of Leicester also suggest that the views of vice-chancellors on internal communications strategies are often far removed from those of the people employed to oversee those strategies …” (more)

[John Gill, THE, 18 December]

“Peer review of academic journal papers should be abolished and teaching-focused lecturers should be encouraged to give up research under proposals seeking to ensure that academe continues to produce ‘paradigm-shifting’ research. The plans are put forward by Donald Gillies, a professor of the philosophy of science and mathematics at University College London, in his new book, How Should Research be Organised? Published this week to coincide with the publication of the results of the 2008 research assessment exercise (RAE), the book argues that the current system, under which more than £1.5 billion a year is distributed to universities, has damaged research quality …” (more)

[Zoe Corbyn, THE, 18 December]

“Today is December 18th, and the UK Research Assessment Exercise results are published. The RAE website is here, and the full results can be read or downloaded here. I have had a rather cursory glance at these, and there appear to be some surprising results, with some older universities doing less well than expected. The Northern Ireland universities, as far as I can see, have at least in some subjects fared well. I shall try to present a more informed view of the results when I have studied them more closely …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 18 December]

“UCU said today that academic and academic-related staff were to be congratulated for their hard work following the publication of the RAE results. The union added that the government must recognise that high quality research is widely distributed throughout UK institutions and rewarded with proper funding. However, UCU said it was not alone in having concerns about the RAE process and warned institutions not to use what they may perceive as low scores as an excuse to downsize or consider redundancies …” (more)

[Dan Ashley, UCU, 18 December]

“As the findings of the final research assessment exercise are released, Times Higher Education has devised tables of excellence to rank institutions according to their subject successes and their overall quality. A new order for research excellence has been established across institutions and disciplines for the first time in seven years, as the results of the 2008 research assessment exercise are made public this week. And while there are no massive changes to the overall research landscape – the biggest research-intensive universities are still clustered at the top of the table of excellence, followed by the smaller research-intensive institutions – there is certainly some significant individual movement …” (more)

[Zoe Corbyn, THE, 18 December]

“Like the launch of a spaceship at Cape Canaveral, the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) is being prepared for full release. The press release was loaded up 14 minutes ago (and is reprinted below). Careers, and department futures, will be made or broken when the results emerge in 46 minutes. Note how they frame the results ever so globally; indeed far more so than in previous RAEs. I’ll be reporting back tomorrow when the results are out, and I’ve had a chance to unpack what ‘international’ means, and also assess just how ‘international’ the make-up of the review panels — both the main and sub-panels — is (or is not), and what types of international registers were taken into account when assessing ‘quality’. In short, can one self-proclaim a ‘dominant position’ in the international research landscape, and if so on what basis? Leaving aside the intra-UK dynamics (and effects) at work here, this RAE is already (judging from the press release) turning out to be a mechanism to position a research nation within the global research landscape. But for what purpose? …” (more)

[GlobalHigherEd, 17 December]

“President Nicolas Sarkozy of France pledged today to increase ethnic diversity at elite universities in a speech at the École Polytechnique, one of the country’s most exclusive grandes écoles, or elite schools, the select cadre of institutions that has produced generations of French political, business, and intellectual leaders. Mr. Sarkozy expressed frustration with ‘the slow pace of promoting diversity in France’ and promised ‘to put more ethnic minorities on TV screens, in political parties, and in elite schools,’ the Associated Press reported. Among other measures outlined in his speech, Mr. Sarkozy proposed that, ‘by 2010, 30 percent of places in the preparatory classes for grandes écoles should go to scholarship children, from an average of around 20 percent now …” (more)

[Aisha Labi, Chronicle, December 17]

“As the clock ticks down to midnight, more than 50,000 academics across the UK wait to see how their research rates in comparison with their rivals (sorry, colleagues) in their fields. They already know how they themselves have been judged by the expert panels of the Research Assessment Exercise 2008 and are basking in the approval of their peers – or smarting from a crass failure to see the value of their research work over the past four years. But at midnight the results are made public on Guardian.co.uk/education and other websites and they can see how they have fared against the competition. With passions running high one vice-chancellor confessed that he felt as if he had staked the family inheritance on the 3.15 at Wincanton. There will be some sore heads in the morning …” (more)

[Donald MacLeod, Guardian, 17 December]

“A couple of weeks ago I was asked to participate in a debate organised by DCU’s Debate Society. The topic was university tuition fees, and I was one of several speakers (including the Labour Party’s education spokesperson, Ruairi Quinn). It was a lively event, and at the end, as you might possibly guess, the majority of those present voted against the reintroduction of fees. However, my point here is not about fees, but rather about debating as a student activity. The event was attended by a reasonable number of students, but the room was by no means full …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 17 December]

“The academic fortress of College Green must be something of a hard station for Dr John Hegarty. As provost of Trinity College since 2001 his work has been difficult and thankless. Much of the support that propelled him into office evaporated when the real work began. The formidable job of restructuring a 400-year-old university has left him isolated and increasingly absent from public view. Hegarty took office at an unsettled period in third-level education. Since the abolition of fees in 1995, universities have been under increasing financial pressure. There have been calls from industry and Government for third-level institutions to abandon isolationist policies and embrace buzzwords – knowledge economy, globalisation, accountability. The quest to obey the State and pay the bills has seen every university in the country rethink its approach …” (more)

[Louise Holden, Irish Times, 16 December]

“Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe is unlikely to back a system of bonus points for maths, despite support from a Government expert group. In a report published yesterday, the Government’s Expert Skills Group sees bonus points as a key instrument in reviving maths. However, the universities and the institutes of technology do not believe bonus points would boost take-up of science and related subjects at third level, according to a spokesman for the Minister yesterday …” (more)

[Seán Flynn, Irish Times, 16 December]

“A new unit at University College Cork aims to improve access to third-level education for students with disabilities by providing them with the most cutting edge technologies and equipment available. The Assistive Technology (AT) unit will help students to maximise their potential and achieve their academic goals, according to Linda Doran, assistive technology officer at UCC. She said assistive technology played a pivotal role in empowering students with disabilities to access the learning environment on parity with their peers …” (more)

[Michelle McDonagh, Irish Times, 16 December]

“Given the growing economic crisis and the rapid increase in unemployment across a wide range of sectors of our economy, many current Leaving Cert students pondering their future career are deeply uncertain how they should proceed. Many older brothers and sisters of this year’s Leaving Certificate cohort, who have recently graduated from college, or who have been working for a number of years, are currently unemployed. This is giving rise to huge concern among the 70,000-plus potential applicants to the CAO, who ask seeking places in college in September 2009. The best advice I can give to all those considering their CAO application at this time is to remember that if you are going to start an undergraduate programme in September 2009, you will be finishing your undergraduate programme in June 2012 at the earliest …” (more)

[Brian Mooney, Irish Times, 16 December]

“At this morning’s event with President McAleese in Phoenix, Arizona, the President of Arizona State University, Dr Michael Crow, made an interesting point. He said that the best predictor of final school results (SATs in the US, Leaving Certificate in Ireland) was not the student’s talents, learning or skills, but his or her zip code (or post code). If, his argument was, you determine university access through examination results, you may think you are applying an objective standard that is blind to class, race and background, but in reality you are doing the opposite. So the first step to tackling educational disadvantage at tertiary level is to accept that a points-based system is inherently discriminatory. What is worse, it is discrimination masquerading as even-handed objectivity. I don’t know, in any scientific sense, whether this holds true for Ireland also. I suspect it does …” (more)

[Ferdinand von Prondzynski, University Blog, 16 December]

“A teaching union has accused the government of investing millions in a tiny elite of students involved in science and research while under-investing in primary education. Almost €1.5bn of taxpayers’ money has been spent on science research and innovation since the start of the last year compared to what the INTO said was ‘under-investment’ in primary education. Union general secretary John Carr said the Government was cutting back educational spending that benefited everyone while investing in a small number of elite students …” (more)

[John Walshe, Independent, 15 December]

“Although Irish has few practical applications, American university students of Irish descent are renewing ties with their ancestors’ native tongue. Twenty-nine American universities now teach Irish, including Notre Dame, which stopped teaching the language in the 1950s only to start up again in 1994. 2004 marked the establishment of a new Department of Irish Language and Literature in the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The university now offers a minor in Irish language and literature …” (more)

[Betty Carlson, Language Links, 15 December]

“The Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) is one of several international consortia that have been created, since the late 1990s, to deepen linkages between universities. I’ve been involved with two of them (the WUN and Universitas 21) while working at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National University of Singapore …” (more)

[GlobalHigherEd, 15 December]

“En route to Cork for the first national awards for Teaching Excellence, organised under the auspices of NAIRTL. Whilst nominations this time around were largely restricted to the partner organisations (three universities and two institutes of technology), next year’s will be open to all Irish HE institutions. This year, however, we can bask in the glory of having 2 out of the 5 awards going to NUI Galway staff! …” (more)

[Summa cum laude, 15 December]

“DCU.SU is stepping up their campaign against the reintroduction of fees by organising a postcard campaign aimed at bending the ear of Minister for Education Batt O’Keefe. All good things come in small packages, but regardless of what size package fees might come in, we say no. Our next step in our anti-fees campaign is a message to Bat O’Keefe with the punchline ‘education is our right, not a privilege.’ Postcards have been distributed around campus all of last week and this week, but if you missed us you can pick one up in the Hub or SU reception …” (more)

[David McGovern, life.dcu.ie, 15 December]

“The awarding of ‘unauthorised’ lavish bonuses and allowances by University College, Dublin, and Trinity College, Dublin, to top staff is under investigation by education minister Batt O’Keeffe and the Higher Education Authority (HEA). Last week, this paper revealed that top staff in both universities currently share a pot of over €6m a year in salaries, bonuses and expenses, but it has emerged that many of those bonuses were awarded without approval from the department or the HEA. While the college’s have claimed all the bonuses were awarded within existing guidelines, Mr O’Keeffe and the HEA claim that a number of anomalies persist and that the matter is under investigation …” (more)

[Daniel McConnell, Independent, 14 December]