Dear Minister: A letter to the new Minister for Education

A meeting with American High School counsellors this week and with a visiting Vice President for racial diversity sparked conversation and so reflection on what the Arts Humanities and social sciences offer the world at this moment in time, and what in particular the Irish context offers of value to that realm. The American counsellors were concerned about the fact that fewer students in the US are now choosing to study the humanities in College, opting instead for business and professional courses. As this is the topic of  Martha Nussbaum's upcoming lecture to be hosted by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and social sciences which I chair this coming Friday, I was curious to pursue this a little and establish what then the counsellors thought might attract their students to Ireland. I was informed that just as they will opt go to Milan to study fashion, these American students who have a global view of opportunity might come to Ireland to study say, literature. In addition as the VP for diversity informed me, American universities are now very conscious that global citizenship is very much part of their mission in education, and so American schools and educational institutions are -lately-coming to that view of the importance of internationalisation.
Well here's a thought-we have long been a nation that reached outwards and understood in the educational context the importance of so doing. Our exchange programmes-early Erasmus initiatives in Europe, and US links- have been forged and joint degrees and programmes now charaterise offerings in all our higher education institutions. As we are once again in the grip of emigration, but this time it is our graduates who are leaving-direct from the University campuses in many cases, thus taking their skills and our intellectual capital investment if you like with them, why do we not think of a way in which we can make that journey a rewarding one for them and for us? They are currently being warmly welcomed by states such as Canada, and although some fledgling efforts are made to engage graduates in training on some programmes while abroad, there is not enough, and nothing like the support that exists under Socrates and preceeded it under Erasmus to support undergraduate programmes. It was the latter in part which helped forge the strong links now exisiting in Ireland with EU instutions which are the envy of our American visitors, and which strengthen collaborative bids for international research funding opportunities thereby enhancing our research and development capacity. Can we not now find some mechanism to support initiatives which might harnass the capacity of our young bright graduates for their and our sake, by ensuring that their travelling abroad is enriching for them and for us, rather than leaving them to the vagaries of chance and opportunity? Instead of settling for snowboarding in Canada or waitering in Australia (though not to dismiss the value of either), why not ensure that they can also choose to be part of a programme of work opportunity and learning (new skills and acquiring foreign languages perhaps) -or of further training and work in their areas which enriches their CV; provides a safer passage and transition which will ease their families anxiety; and provides a possible route back here to the benefit of employers nationally and so our society and economy? Ensuring that this is a nationally sponsored government initiative -jointly perhaps with higher educational institutions- might deliver on a number of things:

• keep the talent and so profit from the expenditure already invested in the young educated of the country within the Higher Education Institutions at a time when restricted recruitment constrains our campuses, thereby ensuring the lifeblood of our academic staff is not depleted and the undergraduate curriculum fed with the direct and cutting edge of research
• ensure that some of those who do go abroad upskill and do so in a strategic manner which will ultimately assist the economy and society here on their return-by planning for that departure and ensuring some will return with certain skills acquired rather than leaving this to happenstance and luck
• walk the walk as well as talking the talk of this country as being a place that fosters youth and education that values ideas and creativity and does not put all of its money in the stratjacket of applied learning and vocational education, thereby submerging the imaginations of its young and not so young.-For as so often has been the case in the past -the really great idea that will help us emerge from this mess-the big idea -will be found in the least expected or anticipated place. But it will be fostered by what has always fostered great research and ideas-breadth of opportunity, and space, as well as the ability and opportunity to piece together things that might previously have been kept apart. That freedom is what scholars share worldwide as a value-it is what is common to both science and art-it is what should guide our education policy and opportunity now. It is what mandates that we keep some of our youngest and brightest connected to home.

So how about it Minister Quinn?

Austerity off campus-profits on campus?

This week I had lunch with the International Education office and a visitor from a strategic partner in the US. It was a working lunch and obviously hemmed in between other meetings and as was probably most convenient on this occasion on campus, but as I had seen a new initiative on campus offering lunch at the Glucksman Gallery & I am a great fan of same, I asked the College staff to change the venue to the Glucksman. I was informed on return just before lunch that we were not going to the Glucksman as we could not go there -or rather could but only if we also paid for the lunch in the staff rest as well (or we could of course send another group of people to the staff rest to eat it!). I fumed silently, but as it was too late to do otherwise, went along with the original booking.

Now a number of points-

1.       The ‘designated’ lunch was not in accordance with any special menu as if it were it would have included a vegetarian option (which I (semi) am-(I eat fish)) but the starter option was in fact meat -so I had bread.

2.       Surely we should be able in good time to cancel like anyone else-if say I reserve a table in Cafe P-there will be waiter service & yet if I cancel do I pay?—I think not. This is not to say anything against the service in the staff rest which was charming and efficient as ever –just to question the management message here to regular and good customers.

3.       In addition I regularly sign requisitions for staff to use research monies etc., to for example entertain people- often those with a particular dietary requirement- off hours & off campus. Is this a useful use of my time or theirs where they obviously have the funds and have decided it is an important initiative?

On the bigger picture do we as an Institution not have a commitment to assist the local economy-not just the one on our immediate campus?  Does it occur to people that it might sometimes be useful to showcase to our guests the wonderful hinterland of the University? I know we do in many other ways, but the means of doing it through traditional hospitality in our local culture is closed off as an option. Whenever I have travelled abroad to Universities, part of the hospitality involved showcasing their local city & its hostelries. I have happy memories for example of a meal in downtown St Louis with international staff and students (albeit with a rather shaky taxi ride home from Joel who picked up en route a musician friend who needed his medicine-another story!) which led to a successful and ongoing student exchange.  As a nation known for its hospitality and Cork a city with a reputation as a gourmet capital what are we doing? Our current austerity measures-or cost cutting as it is euphemistically called-arguably only serves to ensure that the captive campus market for catering is probably the only growth industry in the country!! Yet I am not entirely sure that what must be an increased market (with lower costs) has resulted in obvious price reductions? However even if I am not correct there, should this ban on off campus/preference for on campus hospitality (which is certainly not specifically stated to be based on cost) not go? Any views?

 Another small point-given the week that is in it-is it not fantastic to see former President Mary Robinson sitting on the floor in Chad with a women’s group (Sunday’s Observer newspaper magazine)?  Showing the admirable resilience, idealistic commitment and true pioneering and leadership spirit that is her hallmark, and not always found in former Presidents, and sporting rather unpresidential looking socks, the picture so marvellously understated and accidental in its revelation reminds us of what it is great about being Irish and what is important about leadership and sister power! Happy international women’s day!

Celebrating the importance of Art(s)

The most interesting email I got this week was one from Christopher Clarke of the Glucksman asking for my piece on the drawing that hangs over my desk-a Michael Quane drawing which depicts a male figure in a gymnastic leap. In true Morris Zapp mode it occurred to me that I might use that request and comply with it also populating my (lonely-is there anyone out there?!) blog with the same said piece.-(Indeed surely this kind of reutilisation or recycling deserves particular credit in a research publications world where numbers, hits and citation indices are the flavour of the moment?) The drawing arrived when I requested some for the CACSSS offices on taking up the post as Head of College. My aim was to brighten the place up, but aside from painting the wall in the social area purple-the College colour- I was arguably not very successful in this mission, in that the large painting that now hangs outside my office – a figure with its back turned which I quite like- was relegated there as it was judged too depressing by the staff in the office –who quite wisely pointed out to me that it was not very inviting for students....

The collection of paintings which included the Michael Quane drawing, came from those available in the Glucksman collection & in that sense were pre selected or chosen for me, but I picked the Quane drawing for my office from the selection proffered, as I have always liked his sculpture pieces which grace the President’s garden. It is a quiet but powerful drawing and although I might have had bolder more colourful pieces in mind when I first moved into my office, perhaps this quieter more sombre depiction  symbolises what is more apt (& realistic) for me to aspire to as Head the College-reflective I hasten to add not of my strength of ambition for the College as a whole, but perhaps of the pace of change. However as I reported to College this Monday, we did get a return of monies from ‘moderation’ recently (reversing that strange practice whereby monies are passed from one side of University (ours) to the other to subsidise activities (theirs)). That return is truly a change, and a cause for celebration-though only what is just, and just, I trust, a beginning!

But I digress. To return to the drawing, I like the rough appearance of the texture of the paper -proving Ruscha’s point that background is important. I also like the lines, strong, powerful, visible and yet with the figure not overly drawn but still in formation. It is a muscular drawing-some might say very masculine but I don’t think so- certainly full of movement but graceful, depicting both beauty and strength, much as a ballet movement might. I often look at it during the day-glancing upwards from the lines on my laptop and it gives me pause and refreshment, which is something that changes the day-or can do. The aesthetic environment in which we work is an important part of our lives, and in UCC we are lucky in the institution to which we belong where the campus is a beautiful one, and I have been struck since I moved from one end of the campus to the centre how the architecture of learning, worship and play work so well there together, blending both ancient and new.

In an era when we may find ourselves surrounded with very many arguments about the utility and economic value of the arts, which can be admittedly useful, it is important to celebrate it simply for its own sake. In the same way an education and a degree should be an end in themselves-rather than seen as a means to a utilitarian end. That is not to dismiss the importance of a job in these difficult times, but rather to remind ourselves of the important point that the more flexible and adaptive graduates are, the better they will fare in whatever field of endeavour they choose. The recent Hunt report on higher education is welcome in so far as it celebrates and commends flexibility in degrees, and recommends broad choice in first year of University. Certainly courses which open opportunities and are amenable as pathways to a variety of career paths would seem to be the wise choice for the graduates of the future, and in this respect an arts degree has few rivals.

To return to the drawing, there is another point here that merits a mention, one made by Robert Hughes in reflecting on his TV series on art The Shock of the New. He made the point that what the Box can do is show things and tell, but the inaccurate image on the screen is not the real painting, and not a substitute for the real experience of art. There is a point here about the experiential value of education (the campus, the student societies), the importance of place, and of an education which involves presence on a (multicultural and diverse) beautiful campus. That presence (even for a limited time perhaps) has a value for Irish students, and also for visiting students from abroad. It is quite a different experience I imagine, to study Irish theatre when doing it in Ireland, performing it with Irish actors with Irish accents, in the environment which fostered and may explain the subject matter of that play. Understanding the political and legal system and how it forms part of the local culture and interacts with the European mission is also easier when living there, breathing the air-and drinking pints of Guinness as my American Summer school students used to tell me-than simply reading the law and political structure in texts and online. That is a factor concerning place, art and education, which must form a part of any discussions we have regarding online /e-learning and distance education (a topic perhaps for another day).

Like a fish needs a bicycle - Does a Head of College need a blog?

Patricia Williams’ book The Alchemy of Race and Rights- Diary of a Law Professor has always appealed to me, in part because I liked the vision of her sitting in her candlewick dressing gown writing high flying thought about law-and property law in particular which always struck me as a mystery accessible only to a very elite cult of academic lawyers. I also adored her story about how when walking down Fifth Avenue in New York she overhears the parents of a child explain that there is no difference between two dogs-one a slavering wolfhound and one a Pekinese-(such iron clad objectivity in her view confirming them as lawyers)-when the child can clearly see the difference (as can the wolfhound to which the Pekinese looks like a lamb chop!) Being the owner of a Shih Tzu myself, I particularly appreciate the reference to the ‘fox trotty step’ which stops the Pekinese from ever been taken seriously (of course appearances can be deceptive and I know better what steely determination that walk obscures!) All of this is by way of a long winded introduction to the posting of my first blog which I guess is a kind of a diary, but unlike Patricia Williams is not (or not exclusively) in my role as Professor of Law but rather as Head of the College of Arts Celtic Studies & Social Sciences (CACSSS) in University College Cork .  Why in that role and why now? Quite simply because I was struck by a comment at our last Assembly meeting regarding the need to find a creative space in which to communicate with the members of the College and the Assembly/Council, which is too large even to fit in the assigned meeting room- that is if we ever did reach the enviable position where all 300+ members would want to attend! That fact combined with a feeling of being unable to reach or communicate with very many of the members and staff of the College since I was appointed Head of College in October last. Many people cannot or do not -for whatever reason- attend College meetings, which would have been my anticipated forum for discussion, and that has led me reflect on how I might better communicate with such a large and diverse grouping as exists within this College on matters of ongoing interest or concern. In this I am conscious of, and driven by,the need to harness the wealth and talent there lies within the College-and hear the different, divergent and dissenting views which should inform my decisions as Head of College. There has never been a more important time for the Arts Humanities & Social Sciences to collectively combine wisdom ideas and insight into how our research and educational mission might influence the University locally and nationally, as well as contribute to public policy, national dialogue on educational and cultural affairs, and the curriculum offered to our students and graduates. If this blog provides such a forum for such ideas, that is success. At the very least it should provide a quicker means of engaging with colleagues than perhaps than a physical ‘tour’ around all the schools and their premises -though I will not exclude the possibility of doing that either, and admit the latter might well have the additional merit and similar effect as that fondly recalled by my colleague the Inspector of prisons Judge Kinlen on our visiting Cork prison that the smell of fresh paint (like the Queen) greeted him on every occasion!

I am also conscious, though by no means a techie, that it is the technology that will enable us to reach other audiences-with our research, our programmes-recruitment wise and for collaboration- and which perhaps may even eventually assist us in our educational mission through finding a larger audience for online offerings.  After all Theo Dorgan in his inspirational address to our graduates this winter (which I will upload here if I can manage it) commended our graduates to do so-and Philip King our Alumni award recipient this year celebrates and practices the embracing of technology and its power for the sake of creativity in the arts in West Kerry and around the world.

So is it a good idea for the Head of CACSSS to have a blog? What do you think?

Caroline Fennell