DCU: it's where it's `happening'

Anyone visiting Dublin City University these days, who hasn't been there for a while, is in for a big surprise. The campus has changed beyond all recognition. Less than two decades ago, DCU - or NIHE as it then was - occupied a bleak site on Collins Avenue which boasted only the old Albert College building and a dreary modern block. Today, the smart new campus is well on the way to completion and there's a very real sense that DCU is a "happening" place.

The campus layout is based on a masterplan drawn up by Arthur Gibney back in the early Eighties. A range of `social' buildings - the sports centre, student residences, the inter-faith centre and the student social centre - lie to the south of a landscaped mall. Academic buildings housing computer applications, biology, physics and chemistry departments, sit along the north side of the mall. A series of innovation centres is planned for the land which faces onto Collins Avenue.

High quality student accommodation for almost 600 students gives the campus a village atmosphere, says college secretary Martin Conry. David Flynn, DCU's student union president, agrees. "It's very personal here," he says. "You go into the sports hall, the bar, the canteen and you see the same faces. You never feel a stranger. It gives new students a very secure feeling."

The site at the head of the mall is earmarked for a new library designed by Scott Tallon Walker. DCU expects to advertise for tenders for this building shortly. A new engineering department is also promised.

Come December, the student centre is to be renovated and extended - the students are funding half its £4 million costs by means of a £30 per student levy over the next 15 years. It's to be designed as a multi-purpose centre, to include a huge venue for gigs, a cinema, a restaurant, a wine bar and an outdoor terrace. The centre will also provide space for clubs and societies and the student union. Meanwhile, building has just commenced on a purpose-built creche for up to 40 children.

The main restaurant, which looks more like a canteen, is to undergo a total revamp. "We want to create a food hall - more like something you'd find in Temple Bar," explains Conry.

DCU's president, Danny O'Hare, though, remains tight-lipped about a recent college planning application for an aula maxima, which will double as a performing arts centre and include a 1,250-seat concert hall, a 400-seat theatre and a 150-seat studio theatre together with exhibition space and artists' studios. The word on the ground, however, is that it will be a world-class facility, rivalling UL's Concert Hall and providing a major asset for north Dublin. The National Chamber Choir is now in residence in DCU and the new centre will give it an excellent base.

"Over the past 10 years DCU has enjoyed substantial investment," O'Hare concedes. "Up to the year 2000 we will expend £130 million of which the State will provide only 30 per cent. The rest has been fundraised or borrowed." O'Hare demurs but he is clearly a prodigious fundraiser.

At academic level too, the changes have been enormous. "We started with a huge emphasis on academic excellence," says Dr Pat Barker, associate dean of DCU's business school. "While that's still important, it's a question of getting the balance right and producing a more rounded student."

The business school, for example, now offers undergraduates a range of options including psychology, social development, team-building, conflict resolution, self awareness and assertiveness, and communication and presentation skills. "We're also more flexible about the way students take their degrees - to enable them to participate in sports for example," Barker explains.

Student opinion surveys are taken at the end of every semester and are proving a success, she says. "We take a positive view of them and don't feel defensive. A lot of student suggestions have been very positive and have led to change." This year for the first time, DCU is allocating funds to teaching support and a dean of teaching is to be appointed.

A number of DCU courses are now delivered by internet. The college has even developed a system for automatic marking, according to Prof Alan Smeaton of the school of computer applications.

"Some courses are now taught entirely through the web," he says. "It means that students can take their lectures whenever and wherever they want and I can replace my classes with small group tutorials. Students get better value this way." Web usage is logged. "Students play the classes every day except Christmas day and at all hours."

Ask staff or students about DCU's reputation for being, well, dull and boring and they bristle. "It's a vibrant and exciting place to be and it's improving all the time," counters David Flynn, who recently graduated in analytical science. "I've found that DCU is everything you would wish your college to be. It's been an unbelievable experience."

Since becoming union president, Flynn says he is particularly impressed by how willing the management is to listen and take suggestions on board. "I found they come to the student union seeking our opinions - unlike a lot of colleges where they are constantly at loggerheads with the students."

A major feature of the DCU student experience is the INTRA programme - a six-month work placement for all undergraduates. "It's very useful," comments Flynn. "After second year you can get a bit disillusioned. The work placement in third year helps you apply what you've been learning and you come back more focussed."

Professor Charles McCorkell, head of the school of electronic engineering, says: "We have some very exciting programmes. Because we are young and have grown relatively slowly we have been able to select extremely well qualified and dynamic staff." Pointing to DCU's five-year degree programme in engineering, business and languages, which involves a year abroad, he challenges: "Show me anything as exciting as this in Irish education?"

The engineering school's biggest venture to date is the Remote Access to Continuing Education (RACE) programmes, which offer a number of postgraduate modules via the web. Meanwhile, an innovative teaching group has been established to explore the application of advanced technologies to the educational activities of the school.

DCU's school of biotechnology, which boasts being the first to make a PhD award back in 1983, will move to a purpose-built building in December. "We'll have a pilot plant for a large scale production unit which will mimick what happens in industry," explains Prof Richard O'Kennedy, head of the school of biotechnology. Such an installation, he says, is essential in order to be able to transfer methodologies and systems to industry.

At DCU, all biotechnology students are involved in research projects. "Research is totally interlinked with teaching," O'Kennedy says. Some 50 people are involved in the BEST Centre, which does sensor- related work in co-operation with a number of other universities. "At DCU we have developed sensors which are not available elsewhere in Ireland," he says. "We are producing products and systems which can be marketed and graduates who can work with them. It's an overall package."

If biotechnology is planning a move, computer applications is bent on expansion - it is about to more than double in size both in terms of space and undergraduate intake. "Our BSc in computer applications is more than five times oversubscribed," notes Smeaton, "so I don't anticipate any problem filling the course." A major feature of the programme is the annual champagne breakfast, when final year students present their projects to industry.

Smeaton also testifies to the good on-campus social life. "I've spent time in both TCD and UCD and I've found that DCU is much more integrated as a campus. Because we have so many inter-disciplinary programmes (he cites the BSc in computational linguistics which combines languages and computers and the BSc in finance, computing and enterprise through Irish as examples) we are more collaborative and there's a greater sense of community."

DCU's student services are widely regarded as a major strength. A range of supports is offered, including counselling and health and careers and appointments services. The counselling service offers a student empowerment programme which includes effective study and learning methods, time management and leadership training. Every student is assigned a personal tutor and every DCU academic is involved in the tutoring scheme. "It gives university life a more personal touch," comments Barry Kehoe, who is director of student services. The fact that his unit is headed up by a senior member of staff, who reports directly to the president, is a major asset, he notes. The college is proud of its close links with industry and its high graduate employment record. This year, three quarters of DCU's 1997 crop of graduates gained employment. A further 21 per cent have embarked on research, further academic study or other vocational and professional training.