Brave new world as DIT prepares for multi-million euro investment

Just over a year ago, Brian Norton, a softly-spoken academic from Great Yarmouth in England - accepted the post as president of DIT. The position was widely seen in education circles as a poisoned chalice, writes Seán Flynn Education Editor

DIT had become a byword for rancour and confrontation. A report from the Labour Relations Commission, some years earlier, presented a bleak picture. The college was, it reported, facing a crisis of low morale, troubled industrial relations, bad management and poor internal communications. Morale at DIT had been undermined at virtually all levels by "aloof management, politically-motivated agendas and lack of consultation between management and the college's several hundred staff".

In 15 months, Norton - a former dean of the faculty of engineering in the University of Ulster - has achieved a minor miracle. Staff morale has been restored, the college is attracting record levels of interest from school-leavers and the future could scarcely be brighter.

Over the coming years, DIT - now scattered across 39 locations around the city - will move to a new €750 million purpose-built facility at Grangegorman, north of the city centre. Within a decade, DIT will be the largest third-level institution in the State, with more than 23,000 full- and part-time students.

So, how did Norton manage to transform the battered morale of the college?

Much of it comes down to his easy-going personality and his consensual approach. It quickly became apparent in researching this article that he has few enemies and many friends around the campus and beyond - in the trade unions and other representative bodies.

Norton explains: "My approach was to develop a culture of openness and transparency, to build partnership in a real sense. I wanted to build trust, reassure people that there are no hidden agendas."

Norton is very much the hands-on manager. His fifth-floor office in Dublin's Aungier St is spartan and uncluttered. He prefers, he says, to be out and about talking and listening to students and staff at the different sites.

Norton's decision to jettison DIT's long-held ambition for university status has also helped. DIT invested hugely in pursuing university status over the past 15 years but, with no sign of progress, Norton is moving on - and with no regrets.

By focusing on the university status we were, he says, implying that we should be doing something else. "My view is that we would be taking pride in what we are doing."

DIT is about providing opportunity to an incredibly diverse student body of 11,000 full-time and 10,500 part-time students.

The college has degree-awarding powers up to PhD level. It attracts scores of school-leavers with very high CAO points for its honours degree courses, but it also offers a huge range of apprenticeships and, increasingly access programmes in the community. (Over 30 DIT staff work full-time on access programmes.)

Norton beams with pride when he talks about his top-notch staff and their personal interest in their students. He believes the good news is spreading. In recent years, DIT - despite its internal problems - received more CAO applications from school-leavers than any other college.

The college has been responsive to the changing economy, offering new courses in areas such as property and event management. It has also developed a niche as a "school" for various professions, including accountancy, architecture, culinary arts and so on.

Norton says he wants to retain the strong reputation of DIT colleges such as Bolton Street and Kevin Street and associate them with the new DIT at Grangegorman.

The Grangegorman project, he emphasises, is a a means to an end and not an end in itself. The major challenge is to be even "better at what we do". The institute will, he says, be looking for change in management as well as from the trade unions.

Norton pays generous tribute to the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), which represents academic staff at the college. "The union and its members care deeply about DIT," he says.

Acknowledging the college's troubled history, Norton says there is much more work to do in terms of building trust. We are, he says, working to replace the old adversarial system with a different system. "It will take time, but we are getting there."