Connect: Monday was the final day for applications from people hoping to become president of University College Cork (UCC).
The college is bitterly divided between opponents and supporters of outgoing president Prof Gerry Wrixon. Last year Prof Wrixon got a four-year extension - despite a 61 to 31 vote against it by UCC's academic council - to continue in the job beyond the age of 65. Now, he is leaving.
"Academic politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small," said, allegedly, CP Snow, Wallace Sayre, Richard Neustadt, Henry Kissinger and/or Daniel Patrick Moynihan, among others. It doesn't matter who said it first - it's simply not true any more. In the past it had a pithy accuracy but the relationship of universities to society was then less contested.
Prof Wrixon became president in 1999. He seems to have treated UCC, a vital national institution of this State, like a private sector company. He has seen his role as that of a chief executive in a major "industry" in the education "sector". Naturally, there has been resistance to Prof Wrixon's allegedly "dictatorial" agenda, not least from professors Desmond Clarke (philosophy) and Patricia Coughlan (English).
In 2004, Prof Wrixon said: "I am pro-business, if that means we have to insist on excellence in the way we run our affairs, if we insist on excellence in teaching and learning, if we are conscious of giving value for money . . . and if we are conscious that we are supported by the taxpayer." But being "pro-business" doesn't necessarily mean excellence, value and accountability, Gerry. Being "pro-business" means maximising profits. It can involve excellence, value and accountability too, but such traits must always be subsumed to the goal of profit. There need not be, in business terms, anything wrong with maximising profits but it's absurd - daft, in fact - to regard such an aim as synonymous with excellence, value and accountability. It can be precisely the opposite.
In February last year Prof Wrixon made a profit estimated at €5 million or more when he sold a major shareholding in Farran Technology to the Smith Group. Prof Wrixon founded Farran - the company specialises in developing bomb detection equipment for airports and other public buildings - in 1977 to supplement his income as a lecturer. Now that, Gerry, is pro-business.
There's nothing wrong with it either but it does not mean excellence, value and accountability to taxpayers. However, we seem to be deluged by guff that insists "pro-business" is always synonymous with "leaner", "meaner" and "more efficient" methods.
It's not. Often it simply involves staff working harder for longer in order to help realise a boss's ambitions for profit, glory or both. Prof Clarke has been a consistent critic of Prof Wrixon. He alleges that during Prof Wrixon's presidency, staff have been bullied and intimidated; university statutes and regulations have been breached; there's been a general failure of governance and Prof Clarke is concerned about the appointments process, the use of public monies and UCC's "unsustainable" debts.
It's a startling list. Any one of Prof Clarke's charges requires investigation. Consider "bullying and intimidation". In any large organisation similar charges will most likely be levelled but in the current demented rush to make universities more like business corporations, bullying and intimidation appear to have reached epidemic proportions. Fear ensures university staffs keep quiet.
Whatever the past drawbacks of working in a university, bullying was not the contentious issue it has become. Sure, it existed - nobody is utterly free from spite, insecurity and self-interest - but now bullying too often appears characteristic of academic life. It's invariably a subjective judgment, of course, and legitimate power must make decisions that favour one person above another.
But reports of intimidation, as universities chase private funding to become more "research-oriented" than "student-oriented", are alarming. UCC's plight, as depicted by Prof Clarke, who says the university has debts of at least €60 million, places it arguably in the worst position of all seven universities in this State. Mind you, there are difficulties in the others too.
University College Dublin's (UCD) veterinary students, for instance, are not happy within the recently restructured School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine. They fear that clinical (hands-on) aspects of their training are a low priority. Furthermore, the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) queries the status of an Irish vet degree within the new school.
This has resulted in 11 North American vet students leaving Dublin to attend university in Glasgow, which has AVMA recognition. Each of these students, being non-European Union (EU), was paying fees of around €26,000 a year. And it's not just students who have fled Irish veterinary medicine. At least 12 senior teaching clinicians have resigned in the past three years.
These people have been replaced by less experienced staff but, students claim, large elements of practical-based teaching have nonetheless disappeared. It will be a disgrace - political as well as academic - if, in a time of plenty, Ireland produces a generation of under-qualified vets. So much for excellence, value and accountability: it's time to reconsider what universities are for.