UCD Governing Authority Election 2008

I'm glad to recommend Seamus Sweeney in the upcoming elections.

Seamus Sweeney/ MacSuibhne is running for the graduate election to UCD’s Governing Authority. To many he needs no introduction, but for those with hazier recollections of college, here’s one anyway:

**** Seamus MacSuibhne (yes, Sweeney). He is a tall Irish man with red hair and the massive mind which will save us. Now, there is something going on with UCD and Seamus must solve it. He admires Tintin, he rises above mantels, he breathes the air over 6' 2". He has a daughter. His job is to fix the world for people.

And: UCD needs some sorting: Support the MacSuibhne mind because it will obliterate these problems and pulse onward to greater things. Read below for more on how you can help.****

If that alone is not compelling, read Seamus’ statement below. Having been convinced here’s what you need to do:

1. Make sure you are registered to vote– especially if you have moved or changed your name in the past five years. It helps if you remember your student number, or at least what degree you got. (http://www.ucd.ie/registry/academicsecretariat/GE2008.htm).

2. Spread the word – all UCD graduates (including Masters and H.Dips) can vote – get them to join this group, make sure they are registered.

3. Ballot papers will be mailed at the end of October. Vote MacSuibhne no. 1, and send it back.

4. Post any endorsements, comments, questions for Seamus etc. to the wall.

From the man himself:

A university is not a corporation and should not be run as such. This is not to say that the highest standards of accountability should not be followed, or that the university should not strive to continually improve its performance in all aspects. All institutions need to respond to the changing world around them.

The activities of a university, however, are such that they cannot be reduced to a simple count of numbers of Ph. D. students or of papers published in international journals. This approach fails to capture the complexity of any discipline, and is completely foreign to many disciplines within the university. Ultimately any reductionist approach to measuring a university’s performance will fail. Diversity is a much-abused buzzword these days, but true diversity of perspective and approach is fundamental to the modern university.

The expectations, experience, skills and knowledge of all of the university community – students, teaching staff, researchers, staff, graduates – need to be respected and incorporated. “Change” has too often been used as a buzzword to stifle dissent and force through decisions take without proper consultation, or with only cursory respect to the opinions of those most affected by the change.

As I have been a student, a practitioner and now have a teaching role within UCD, I feel I am ideally placed to bring these perspectives to the Governing Authority.

Seamus Mac Suibhne (Sweeney) – graduated MB BCh BAO 2002. Currently Special Lecturer in Psychiatry in St Vincent’s University Hospital/UCD. Involved in undergraduate psychiatry curriculum design. Introduced a multidisciplinary lecture series entitled “Psychiatry and Society” for medical students. While an undergraduate, involved in the University Observer and the Philosophy Society.

More info on facebook!

Thanks for your support all

As I thought likely Mary O Keefe got that seat, which means I didn't get in! But I think this was useful campaign, certainly a learning experience for me. Hopefully next time round the SU will have a plan long in advance to secure at least one of these seats. I started late, and had other demands on my resources during the election. I think one of the lessons I learned most during the campaign is that democratisation is the key issue going forward. Even an elected representative on the GA is limited by a rigid set of stipulations, and the threat of being kicked off if not behaving.
Anyway, congratulations to the people who got in. Mary O Keefe is an unknown quantity, but as a former mature student and nurse, I think she may possibly be receptive to the SU view on things.
Finally, but most importantly I would like to that the SU for their support, that includes everyone on the executive, and the council, and people who helped me stuff quite a few envelopes. I want to specially mention Fergal, Dan Finn, and the irrepressible James Redmond for their practical help. It was great to discover that energtic and critically minded political committment is alive among those *just a little* younger than me. Also thanks to Global Action (Dave and Dave's MA also!), Labour Youth, Kathleen Lynch and to anyone who I have failed to mention above. Results below, I don't have any figures yet.

ELECTION OF THREE MEMBERS BY GRADUATES

The following candidates have been elected:

MANNING, Maurice

O' KEEFFE, Mary Theresa

DE BHALDRAITHE-MARSH, Cliona Ellis

Message from John Baker re GA meeting on Strategic Plan

Dear friends and colleagues,

At a meeting of UCD staff yesterday, called by the UCD trade unions
in association with the UCD Students Union, it was unanimously agreed
that the outgoing Governing Authority should be lobbied not to adopt
any Strategic Plan at its meeting of 7 December, because no one has
yet seen the Plan and because (contrary to the Universities Act and
Sustaining Progress) there has been no serious process of
consultation with staff about it. It is also inappropriate for the
outgoing GA to make such long-term decisions at the end of its term
of office.

People were invited to communicate this point of view to members of
the GA directly, and/or to participate in a lobby of the GA to be
held at the Radisson Hotel on Tuesday next at 1.30 pm.

The list of GA members is provided at the following web site and is
reproduced below.

http://www.ucd.ie/govauth/members.htm

There is the also a list of such email addresses of external members
as could be located (courtesty of Sara O'Sullivan).

If you feel able to lobby any of these GA members in advance of
Tuesday's meeting, the unionised staff of UCD would be most grateful.

An appropriate form of appeal might be as follows:

As a
member of the staff / student / graduate of University College Dublin
/ citizen of Ireland
I am very concerned at the speed at which the current Strategic
Planning process in UCD is being conducted and in particular at the
fact that, contrary to the Universities Act and Sustaining Progress,
there has been no serious process of consultation with staff about
it. I also believe that is inappropriate for the outgoing Governing
Authority to make such long-term decisions at the end of its term of
office.

I would therefore call on you as a member of that Governing Authority
to refrain from adopting any Strategic Plan at your meeting of 7
December.
John Baker
Equality Studies Centre, University College Dublin

Critque of OECD report on Higher Education

As a proponent of an equality based agenda, I endorse entirely Professor Kathleen Lynch's critique of the recent OECD report on higher education in Ireland. She has saved me the trouble of detailing it's failings. The main problem is the value system within which it understands education. The Irish Times title for her article speaks of "reeking of utilitarianism".
See http://www.ucd.ie/esc/html/itdoc.doc

The report also advocates a return to undergraduate fees, and the replacement of academics on governing authorities with "lay" members. Kathleen has also recently presented an excellent outline of why privatisation of education is problematic in a democratic society.
See the Equality Studies announcements page for slides of her talk, which was given to the Global Action society at UCD. In conclusion she gives six reasons why democratic public control of education matters:

1. 1.People have a right to education – Article 24of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 14 (ICESCR)
2. 2.Education is indispensable for realising other rights: education credentials play a crucial role in mediating access to other goods, including employment, cultural goods and political participation
3. 3.Education enables one to overcome other social disadvantages. In a market-driven private system this becomes a secondary objective
4. 4.Education has an intrinsic value for the development of the individual – for the exercise of capabilities, choices and freedoms
5. 5.Education has a care function as well as a development function: this cannot be guaranteed in a privatised system
6. 6.Education is a Public Good as well as a Personal Good- it enriches cultural, social, political and economic life locally and globally. In a commercially-driven system the public good dimension can be easily sidelined

Regarding " utilitarianism"I would add:
The problem is not with the pursuit of technical and economic goals but with the uncritical and unreflective pursuit of such goals. Economic and technical pursuits need a moral and social context. Moreover, social, civic and cultural goals must be valued in and of themselves. The tradition of the academy is central to civilization itself, and at the core of that tradition is the humanities, the liberal arts and the social sciences. Universties provide a crucial independent arena for reflection and critque in open societies, and a context in which technical and other goals can be subjectied to deeper questioning. They input crucially into the civic and civil fabric of society.

Students Union President on the Brady agenda

from the letters page of The Irish Times

Dear Madam,
As the President of UCD’s Students’ Union I read with interest your editorial of the 3^rd of November celebrating the 150^th anniversary of UCD's founding. I have to say I disagree with your assessment of Dr Hugh Brady’s vision for a new UCD.
I agree with you that in very many ways the life of University College Dublin mirrors the life of the modern Irish state. Presently in Ireland we see a struggle between people who see the state as having a minimal role in providing services to its citizens and those who want to see properly funded health, transport and education services. This struggle is alive and well in UCD.
Education is under the threat of a creeping form of privatisation. The Government, the Higher Education Authority, the OECD and Dr Hugh Brady have all joined together to push for a reliance on corporate funding. They base their vision for Irish universities on American colleges like Harvard and Yale, both of which charge tens of thousands of dollars per year.
Students and academics are fearful of the University that Dr Hugh Brady envisages. His vision of a university is one which takes Newman’s idea of a University where learning and knowledge are the ends in themselves, and twists it around to one where learning and knowledge are only worthwhile if you can offer something to the corporate world.
According to Dr Brady, this university is now to be one where research for private companies takes priority over everything else. His is a University where teaching and students take a back seat. Evidence of this lies in the fact that of the 7 new pathways to professorship that Dr Brady published recently, none have anything to do with an academics ability to teach or give interesting engaging lectures.
I was personally proud to be asked to join in the celebrations that UCD put on for the 150^th but found that events were sadly lacking for either the general staff or ordinary student population. This fact adds legitimacy to the fears of students that they, under the new vision of Dr Brady, are merely incidental to the running of a university.
This is why students and a lot of staff in UCD don’t support Dr Hugh Brady’s new vision for UCD and wish for a University more like the one Cardinal John Henry Newman envisaged where knowledge is an end in itself. We wish to see a University that is for the benefit of all the people of Ireland not a University that is solely for the benefit of the business community. As the Cardinal himself put it when speaking of what is good for a university.
“Pursuits, which issue in nothing, and still maintain their ground for ages, which are regarded as admirable, though they have not as yet proved themselves to be useful, must have their sufficient end in themselves, whatever it turn out to be” (Cardinal John Henry Newman)

Is mise le meas

Fergal Scully

Uachtarán, Aontas Na Mac Léinn

What is the Governing Authority?

The Governing Authority is the key decision-making body in UCD bringing the President to account, and deciding on fee increases, new building, private sponsorhip, and all kinds of college policy. Among the membership are:

3 Elected by UCD graduates
3 Nominated by Minister of Education
8 County councillors to be nominated by the General Council of County Councils
2 members nominated by the NUI
Lord Mayor of Dublin
2 from organisations eg INO, Aontas
1 Elected by postgrads
3 Elected Officers of the Students Union
3 Elected by Non academic Staff
5 Elected by the Non-Professorial Academic Staff
6 Elected by the Professorial Academic Staff
Registrar of the College
President of the College

http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=64996 outlines the members of the outgoing GA who voted to increase postgrad fees by 10%.
Notice that there are 2 graduate candidates among them, Matt Harmey and Cliona De Bhaldraithe. Maurice Manning failed to attend the crucial meeting.

Can I vote?

All graduates of UCD are eligible to vote in this election. But if you had a vote in the last election (Dec 2000) and did not use it, your name will probably have been removed from the register. If you ring the registrars office soon they will send you out a ballot anyway.

If you have moved, and a ballot has already been sent out, the registrar will not send a second ballot.

If you graduated since December 2000 you will automatically receive a ballot.

Queries to: registrars.office@ucd.ie +353-1-7161430.

Keeping the gates open: Keep free fees.

The labour party's Jan O Sullivan has excellently summarised the arguments for free fees in her paper Keeping the gates open. Free fees form a congruent part of a social-democratic vision of education which I happen to also share:
She argues "Education is so fundamental to personal development and the fulfilment of individual potential, that it is seen by social democrats as an integral part of the social democratic concept of social citizenship." In detail, she knocks on the head many of the myths proposed by those who support the return of fees.
She concludes: "When fees for third level education were abolished, it was the first step in forcing open the gates of many institutions – institutions whose gates had up to then been effectively closed to people below a certain level of income. Ireland’s future, as an inclusive society and dynamic economy, depends on those gates being kept open."