Customisation or the freedom to wander.

I recently spent a Monday at the Royal Irish Academy listening to the new Minister for Education’s speech on third level and the implementation of the Hunt report. It was an interesting meeting-the Minister stayed for the first discussion session- and striking for the opportunity on the day to engage, particularly the invitation from the Minister for future engagement (which we should embrace), as well as the number and variety of contributors including those of student leaders, as well as quite a number of retired academic staff (in some cases retired Presidents). Of course retired staff may be best placed to dissent and so comment on how things might be without feeling the constraints of living within-though naturally that could also well cut both ways! The occasion marked however the beginning of a dialogue which it is important we have, and it was good that the commitment to continue to engage was evident and manifest on the part of those within the institutions (staff and students) as well as those including policy makers outside. The most damning contribution on the day, however, in my view came from the Students’ Union education officer who claimed that if you removed the University crest or logo from all the course descriptions in our Universities, you would then be unable to tell them apart, so similar are they in content. An indictment of our similarity of mission perhaps, or of the homogenisation of our institutions as we attempt to customise what programmes we offer to the generally held view of what is relevant or necessary?  Let us hope that in any event this conversation with the Minister continues and involves not just preaching to the converted but includes many more new voices-particularly those who are on the ground delivering in our institutions of higher education, who are best placed to offer challenges to our curriculum and celebrate the appropriate distinctiveness in our missions thereby justifying our autonomy.

I reflected on this as I read last Sunday Observer’s article on Google and the feature they now offer, since December 2009 (news to me I admit) whereby what one gets when one ‘googles’ something is not the same response as for everyone else, though the query might well be identical. This is because Google, based on information they already have (from previous searches etc.) will have filtered, pre defined or selected what that person might like or be interested in. This was the subject of a recent talk given by Ell Pariser at TED where he argues that the major internet players may therefore be isolating us in our preconceived world views, by adapting what we find to our known tastes and interests. It is a little like Amazon telling you what books you might like, and in that same sense marginally more worrying than the recommendation of a choice of wine you might like from your wine store, or a cheese suggestion from your local market stall. The idea that we are already predictable and known in our habits-that our selection of movies, food and politics is already charted leads to a longing-on my part at least- for the unexpected. I love to discover something unexpected or unknown about someone- when a colleague sells concert tickets for instance and you get an insight into their music choice (you know who you are!!)

 All of this musing brings me back to the RIA and resonates with something in the Hunt report which I think should find favour and be welcomed. This is the Hunt report’s recommendation of a movement away from too restrictive or prescriptive course offerings, and endorsement of the ability and facility for students to wander and wonder amongst the broader sweep of subjects, particularly important as part of the first year  in University. Not narrowly focussing simply on what is seen to be ‘of the moment’ or strategically important or economically lucrative is also important throughout the undergraduate experience it seems to me. Hence the importance of an arts degree and of the first year in particular offering –as it does in UCC-a breath and diversity in first year-four subjects-some familiar and some new, from which the student can choose to elect to take to degree level those which are to them the most interesting and challenging.

In a sense it is a plea to allow ourselves and our students not to become (yet) parodies of ourselves-and allow our own instincts and natures to be challenged. As we tailor our reading to what we already know we will like-so our media, for example, is pre-selected to contain certain articles on certain topics (not just from a certain perspective). This can more easily happen if we receive or filter our media on-line- and less likely to occur if we have to hold and pass over all of the pages of a newspaper, so that our eyes might then alight on something we might not otherwise have known or wondered about- in the sports pages perhaps! It is the same when we wander through all of an exhibition in an art gallery, or browse the shelves of a book store or library- allows for the unexpected discovery and avoids a narrowing of life. Just as many of us are familiar with the phenomenon of not understanding how a vote goes a certain way in an election or referendum-because no one we know thinks that way- all of us are guilty of surrounding ourselves with ‘people like us’. So a bit of diversity-a chance to choose-a facility for an unexpected encounter in first year with a subject or a lecturer hitherto unknown is all the sweeter because it is unexpected and should be treasured. Our learning and curricular structures should allow for that unexpected something to happen, should avoid the customised route and our personal mission should also be to make it harder for Google to read us- be a little contrarian in nature.  As we have noticed nationally recently, some of that goes a long way.

Irish Identities

It has been a week when identities and Irish identities in particular have been the subject of much comment consideration-at home and abroad-and also a cause thankfully of celebration. It has been uplifting in a way which we have not seen in Ireland for a while and in UCC we had a small piece of that with the Queen’s visit to Tyndall, as we will have an ongoing connection with the visit of President Obama through the ongoing Frederick Douglass project. The connection of identities with many of our disciplines in CACSSS and the recent development of the exciting link in Irish Studies with Notre Dame and opportunities of exchange of our postgraduates, leads to the question of how we should best mark our College’s engagement with this issue. Here the College owes a great deal to Dr Jean Van Sindern Law who brokered the deal with Notre Dame identifying both a potential sponsor and the partner College; the President of UCC who championed the issue as part of his NYC visit and Prof Pat Coughlan who ably represented the College on that visit, articulating the case for Irish Studies eloquently as you might expect; but as you may not appreciate along the way (at the Ireland fund dinner no less) meeting both Mohammad Ali & Enda Kenny!! -All in a day's work for an English Prof.!

Next week will also see the celebration of the honorary conferring in UCC which will in part mark the generous support of scholarship within the University and the College. It is therefore timely and appropriate to reflect on the engagement of people on a worldwide scale with Irish identities and its themes, and ponder how they might best be connected with what happens in our College and made aware of our scholarship and expertise. (Also I confess that Jean asked me about this, and I do feel we owe her!)

I think what is exciting about the project of Irish identities in UCC is the opportunity it offers for people to appreciate what we offer in this area in UCC (particularly -but not exclusively- in CACSSS). It will facilitate first an engagement with these issues initially on line, perhaps leading some to later follow up with a visit to our campus while on holiday; then progressing to take a taster course or attend a summer school; resulting in someone sending a student-or enrolling themselves in a MA. The potential is huge. Our audience is literally anyone who wishes to engage with the issues we are researching and studying-and here it is significant that we remember, as Bill Clinton reminded us recently on St Patrick’s Day, what we are good at.- In our case as a University it is research and education- manifest in learning, thinking and our engagement with ideas. The UCC Irish identities project can and should showcase our expertise-the books we author; the projects we research; the conferences we host;- but it should also do more and allow that engagement to develop by facilitating a living dialogue or conversation if you will on Irish identities with academics working in the area at its core. Making that connection between the academics researching and exploring the issue –which is what we are about as a University- and the interested public, should be central to all our endeavours and at the heart of the public face of the University.  -Whether this is manifest through engaging with our archives; our collections; interpreting for others and communicating what we have discovered-and what we are about-what we possess (digitisation of our collections here is key)-what we write and have written and are writing-what collective seminars and dialogues we might publicise-it will all further flourish through creating a ‘live’ intellectual space through which people find out about Irish identities, and engage with the scholars at its core. This is a golden opportunity to bring the atmosphere and excitement of the lecture theatre and seminar room in UCC onto a global stage.

To give a concrete example of how this might happen. Those teaching on the MA in Irish Studies might decide to offer a forum around the themes being explored as part of that programme whereby students on the MA reflect on and articulate what they are doing and why; explore what they are learning, and academics comment and opine. It could both serve to highlight the fact that interested people can further engage with issues such as these through the MA, as well as act as a ‘live’ learning journal for those students. There may be other and much better ideas-but common to them should be an engagement in a dialogue that is current and living. So to answer Jean's question, that is what I think we need and what CACSSS will be happy in co-operation with you and others to provide.

Source of power on campus?

A conversation recently with someone unfamiliar with UCC included the question where the source of power was-perhaps unsurprising as academic institutions can be particularly opaque to the uninitiated. I was of course unable to say, and asked merely that if they found it they let me know. As I have been someone who often felt that as soon as I was on a committee the decisions happened at the pre-meeting, I am not often surprised at an inability to discover where an actual decision is taken. This may frighten those who think college heads have power, (and reassure others who hope they do not), but it illustrates a general point that the really interesting meetings and decisions are often not in the obvious fora but elsewhere. In fact that realisation -when I noticed the small attendance at College Assembly meetings- was in part the inspiration behind this blog-and reflects a fact which I should have known from my own research, which is that what is really interesting and significant happens on the margins-the periphery. I have always used this to argue for and examine the centrality of emergency legisaltion in the criminal process, so I should not have been surprised that in my role as college head the headiest and most insightful experiences would be outside regular stuctures.
And so to some of the interesting 'off site' meetings i.e. outside structures and so possibly invisible if you were that martian looking for the source of power and decision:
the College 'forfas' rountable discussion on research themes where real intellectual robustness and creativity was displayed by all present in an exciting clash of ideas at times-which did lead somewhere in terms of identification of themes for that process (however flawed);
the College school recruitment committees with staff expressing great and innovative ideas about promoting our courses & in particular the BA;
and roundtable discussions regarding the MA in Irish Studies where I am learning a lot and those participating are showing great patience (with me) as well as good humour and energy in planning that academic programme.
In the institution itself it is also true that the 'big ideas' will be on the margins: -between disciplines perhaps in small isolated offices or emergent in conversations over coffee between scientists and arts/humanities people, and that it is these that will change our education and research. Rarely will the oft mentioned 'innovation' happen in a committe or indeed a structured meeting. The one exception and occasion when ideas that challenge and will change our world emerge in a structured way -and not infrequently but with great regularity- is in the lecture theatre and class room, and they were perhaps my best and favourite moments of this term, when occasionally I saw my students exited by ideas, and literally bursting to articulate them. Like all academics it is that which keeps me going-that is where the real action and power on campus lies. Everything else we do whether as college heads or elsewhere should be to support that learning process. It is those revolutions of thought that will change our worlds, and so that is where the true power is and should be on campus.

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