Volcano reveals just how globalised higher education has become

PRESIDENT'S LOG:The volcano has shown us how fragile the work and leisure habits of modern life really are, writes FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

LAST WEEK I was supposed to travel to London to attend an academic event. In the end, I wasn’t able to go, as the airline concerned hadn’t taken to the skies again in time. But, right up to the last minute, I didn’t know whether I would be able to fly.

First, we all thought that the eruptions from volcano Eyjafjallajokull could only last a day or so, and all would be fine. But it continued to spew huge quantities of volcanic ash into the atmosphere (750 tons per second), and the experts all appeared on television with their most serious demeanours and their assurances that all aircraft attempting to fly would be damaged instantly beyond repair.

Then Iceland’s president, the avuncular Ólafur Grímsson, took to the airwaves to tell us that Eyjafjallajokull could go on spewing its stuff for a long time, and that when it stopped, it was likely to be followed immediately by an even bigger volcano that could keep us all on the ground, and perhaps indoors, for years to come.

I was waiting to see whether we might get a “minister for volcanic ash” – just as we had a “minister for snow” in John Gormley last January – but it wasn’t to be. A pity really, as what’s the point of those 65 million tons of volcanic ash per day if we didn’t have someone in charge whom we could blame? Mr Grímsson in Reykjavik is too far away for that, though if his promised volcano upgrade happens I might have second thoughts about it.

We had hardly digested the news when people from some aviation authority or other popped up on our screens to tell us that it was all a ghastly mistake and that it was okay for everyone to fly, ash or no ash, just as thousands of stranded travellers had given up on planes and taken to the buses, ferries, taxis and bicycles to get back home.

Okay, I thought, I’m going to go to London after all. Not a bit of it, because my airline had decided that, while it was back in business, it wasn’t going to fly anywhere from Ireland for a little while, for reasons that kind of escaped me. So I didn’t go.

But sad though my little story about a missed event in London might be, I cannot claim that this seriously affected my life. But the volcano has shown us how fragile the work and leisure habits of modern life really are. There are lots of reports on how the volcanic ash has affected tourism, trade, cultural exchanges, political collaboration, and all sorts of other things; but we are only beginning to think about its impact on universities.

All over the world, the top institutions now rely on overseas input and participation: in exam marking; in support for interview panels; in expert reviews of research proposals; in giving strategic advice. Some of this can be done online or through videoconferencing. But even in this age we rely on travel to provide us with opportunities to collaborate with, and get support from, partner institutions overseas. And our highly valued international students need to be able to travel here.

Higher education is a globalised business, even more so than international trade, and having travel taken away from us has revealed the extent to which this is so.

Really, we have hardly begun to think through the implications. This may turn out to be another example of what some are calling the avian flu (or swine flu) phenomenon – a very serious situation that does not turn out to be as long term or widespread a problem as at first assumed. But we cannot be sure of that.

Anyway, not everyone has the same perspective on this. The Minister of State for Planning Ciarán Cuffe was quick to suggest on his Twitter site that volcanic ash had “a silver lining”, as it diverted high carbon-emitting air travel on to more environmentally-friendly ferries. So maybe we should have a look at the environmental and cost-based considerations of global engagement and see if there are alternatives to travel that would still allow us to deepen our international partnerships.

All of this is, no doubt, worth a discussion, but I still believe that travel, particularly for students and younger academics, is an important intellectual and cultural tool.

I don’t see any advantage in going back to being insular. Knowledge is borderless, and needs to be experienced that way. So I hope Mr Grímsson is wrong about the next volcano; or at any rate that we now know how to overcome the effects.

Ferdinand von Prondzynski is president of Dublin City University