Returning universities to a less complex age?

The following extract from a speech delivered by Ireland’s President, Michael D. Higgins, to the annual congress of the Union of Students in Ireland caught my eye:

‘What kind of a scholastic institution or community of learning is it when you hire a very important person who can bring investment to a university but doesn’t want to teach the main body of undergraduate students?’

There are all sorts of things wrapped up in the President’s question. First, there is an assumption that generating income for a university is not particularly significant. Secondly, there is at least by implication the suggestion that research detracts from a university’s teaching mission. Thirdly, there is a criticism of staff who do not teach, and assumption that there are many of these.

The President’s picture of contemporary Irish universities does not in reality stand up to much scrutiny. Researchers play a vital role in the life of a university. They develop scholarship and knowledge, and sustain a creative and innovative society. Mostly they do teach, often enthusiastically. The quality and standing of Irish universities has improved dramatically since they embarked upon a high value research agenda, from the late 1990s onwards. Students have also significantly benefited from this.

Of course it is good that President Higgins is stimulating debate and questioning value systems. But it would be better if this did not involve a caricature of the country’s universities, or a misunderstanding of what they do and of the contribution they make. The President is suggesting that there may have been a better, purer age of higher education. In truth there are a good many things that could be done better, and there are some developments over recent years that could usefully be questioned. High value research is not one of them.

Scotland’s Rectors and elected governance

One of the genuinely unique features of Scottish higher education is the office of Rector in the ‘ancient’ universities. This is a totally different function from that of a Rector in continental European universities, where the holder is the institution’s chief academic officer. In fact, the origins of the office are the same, as originally Scottish Rectors were also heads of their institutions. However, the role evolved over time and, since the late 19th century, has been governed by statute. Since that time Rectors have been the elected representatives of the university’s students (except in Edinburgh, where they are elected by students and staff), and have the right to chair the governing body, or Court.

It is hard to evaluate the usefulness of the office, as students have from time to time adopted a variety of approaches to the elections. A number of celebrities have been university Rectors, including John Cleese, Brian Cox and Stephen Fry. On the whole these have not been active contributors to university affairs. In other cases Rectors have had a more direct involvement, such as Edinburgh’s current Rector, the journalist Iain Macwhirter.

The modern concept of the Rector was based in part on the desire to see greater student input in university affairs, at a time when students were not yet granted membership of governing bodies. Whether this is still useful is an issue being debated in Scotland. Are Rectors an historical curiosity that survives because of the attraction of such an unusual feature? Or could they be retained or even extended as an example of a democratic element in higher education? Or is it time to consider whether the office has outlived its usefulness?

Being the Master

One of the side-effects of any significant increase in participation levels in higher education is that a degree no longer sets you apart from the general population. If the official Irish target of securing a 72 per cent participation rate of each age cohort is achieved, then having a degree will be nothing very special. It therefore follows that those with ambition will look more closely at extending their studies to take in a postgraduate degree, usually at Master’s level. And indeed that is what has happened, and over the past decade or so the number of those following this path has increased dramatically. Previously the main postgraduate activity tended to be in business schools, particularly in MBA programmes, but now it is common to have taught degree courses in almost any discipline.

For those who want to develop their portfolio of achievements with a Master’s degree, the jury is actually out as to whether it will necessarily help them very much; it will depend on the degree and the kind of career they want to develop. But a recent article in the Guardian newspaper suggests that some employers are now looking for postgraduate qualification for new recruits in certain jobs.

The question that we may increasingly be putting is whether postgraduate programmes are particularly appropriate for more vocational qualifications, in professions such as law, accountancy and so forth. In other words, we may start to look more closely at the American model of having quite general undergraduate degrees, and keeping profession-oriented programmes at the postgraduate level. It is s model that, on the whole, I would prefer, not least because we should probably stop asking young people to make career choices at the age of 17, when they are often very badly equipped to take such decisions.

In praise of science research foundations

When I became President of Dublin City University just over ten years ago, the country’s research community was just convulsed in a debate that came from the then recently conducted ‘Technology Foresight‘ exercise that had been commissioned by the Irish government. This had recommended the establishment of a foundation that would coordinate and oversee science research, to ensure that Ireland’s science reputation would stimulate innovation and investment. The reason for the anguish was that it had been suggested that the national research effort would proceed more successfully if it were conducted in autonomous institutes that would draw on the universities’ expertise but would not be part of them.

For a little while there was a kind of stand-off between the universities and the embryonic Science Foundation Ireland, at the time under interim leadership. But then came the appointment from the United States of Bill Harris as the first Director-General of SFI, and he set about creating a constructive relationship between the foundation and the higher education institutions, based somewhat on the model of the US National Science Foundation. Within a short period of time SFI had enticed a number of prominent world class researchers to come to Ireland and had facilitated the nurturing of indigenous talent. We now know that a significant proportion of foreign direct investment over recent years has taken place because Ireland now offered world class expertise and innovation.

Bill Harris was followed by Frank Gannon, himself a prominent researcher with significant experience of research leadership and administration in Europe. Under his leadership SFI’s capacity to create the backdrop for high value economic success has continued. We now gather that he is about to leave SFI for a new appointment overseas, and this creates a setting in which the government will have to take an important decision. There may be some pressure to move the focus of investment away from research, or at any rate academic research, and there may be pressure to dilute the distinctive role of SFI through the creation of a much more broadly based super-funding body.

SFI has created quite specific scientific expertise in Ireland in areas that are at the heart of global industrial growth right now. They are in the health sciences, in innovative convergence between science and engineering or computing, and in other such areas. We will miss out on our share of global economic growth if we dilute our effort.

It is of course important that attention is also focused on research in the humanities and social sciences. But it would be highly unwise to under-estimate the impact of SFI in its distinctive mission on Ireland’s economic opportunities. Arguments that seek to downplay this significance, or suggest that a separate foundation for science is unnecessary, are very risky for us right now. They should not be followed.

My colleague the computer

It’s that time of year when academics all over the place get ready for another avalanche of marking and assessment. In my own case, while I really do miss teaching very much and am looking at ways of returning to it, I don’t miss marking. Not even slightly. And I feel for those who will, over the next couple of months, be inundated with it.

But is there another way? In fact, could we just give the job to computers? And might we find that they can grade essays and assignments and examinations just as effectively as we can? Well perhaps, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Akron. They compared grades given to 22,000 short essays written in American schools by live examiners with those recorded by computers running ‘automated essay scoring software’. The differences were, according to the researchers, ‘minute’.

I don’t know what kind of software this is, or how it works, or what its stated limitations might be, but this is a pretty amazing result. We know that computers can easily grade multiple choice examinations, but essays? And can we really imagine that an assignment intended to produce reasoned analysis could be assessed by machine? More generally, how much work has been done in considering the role that computers can play in designing, conducting and assessing teaching?

In fact, this is a subject of some interest in the education world. In July of this year there will be a conference in Southampton in England on computer-assisted assessment, and indeed there is a journal on the subject.

There are probably various contexts in which higher education assessment can be conducted by or with the help of software. But equally there are others where, at least from my perspective, it is unlikely that computers will be able to make robust qualitative judgements that could replicate human marking. Somehow I doubt that, in a few years, lecturers will no longer have to be examiners.

Eccentricity of the intellect

Anyone who, like me, has studied or worked in Trinity College Dublin over the past half century is familiar with the historian R.B. McDowell. Let me say right away that I’m not suggesting we all know anything, even in outline, of what McDowell taught or researched, but we know what he looked like and how he appeared on the campus.

Robert Brendan McDowell died just over a year ago, having very nearly reached the age of 100. He was instantly recognisable: in all weathers he crossed the campus wearing what looked like three or four layers of coats and a battered hat (all of which looked like they had seen better days). He was constantly talking or mumbling, even when nobody was with him. He always walked fast. At dinner he would wear an old gown that was stained and torn in several places. However, if you were sitting near him you would hear a never-ending flow of comments and anecdotes, many of them highly amusing.

About 25 years ago McDowell and another TCD Fellow wrote a history of the College. I remember sitting next to him at Commons (dinner) at the time he was writing this, and in explaining his work he remarked to me that one of the sad discoveries he had made that there were no longer any eccentrics in academic life. I bit my lip.

Of course to many in the outside world the academy is all about other-worldly eccentricity. To many observers this makes old professors endearing, but also emphasises their remoteness from ‘real life’: academics are thought sometimes to inhabit a world in which the normal laws and customs of human behaviour and relevance don’t need to apply. I confess I find this a difficult concept to address. Eccentrics are endearing, but more importantly, an eccentric approach to knowledge can open up new ways of thinking, or facilitate important discoveries. I understand the desire to protect and preserve this aspect of academic life. On the other hand, universities should not be presented chiefly as places in which harmless eccentrics pursue daft ideas, some of which may by some fluke turn out to be important.

Certainly academic freedom should, amongst other things, allow and nurture some degree of intellectual unorthodoxy, which may present to some as eccentricity. But universities are now increasingly institutions that need to answer some quite direct questions posed to them by society, and other-wordliness may not be the response primarily sought. This is a hard balance for universities to get right. But whatever your university might be, I do hope that there will still be some room in it for a person like R.B. McDowell.

Fantasy football

The path that takes a young person to a university, or that diverts them from it, starts very early in life. It has been said that the best predictor of higher education success – far better than school examination results – is a person’s post code. The environment in which people experience life and educational formation from a very early age will often determine their level of educational ambition. By the time a young person has reached the age at which he or she might complete a university admissions form, their likelihood of doing so has long been decided. Universities seeking to extend access to disadvantaged students must begin with schools – preferably primary schools, or even with pre-school children.

This obvious fact has now been emphasised in England by the Office of Fair Access (OFFA), the body established to ensure universities charging higher tuition fees implement effective access strategies. In a guidance document issued earlier this month, OFFA Director Professor Les Ebdon said:

‘OFFA has long emphasised the important contribution that institutions can make in helping to raise aspirations and attainment among bright students in schools and communities where very few progress to higher education. However, my meetings with the sector to date suggest that there needs to be a further step-change in the efforts devoted to this area. So Every so often readers of this blog have to put up with posts about Newcastle United FC. More often than not these have been tales of woe, with accounts of mismanagement and uncertainty of direction, skulduggery and delusion. Not today. Against all the odds, for the past year Newcastle’s owner has served up a banquet for the fans in the form of extraordinarily skilful management (in the form of the unexpectedly brilliant Alan Pardew) and sheer genius in sourcing new players. The result: the club sits at number 6 in the Premier League, equal on points with Chelsea, but after spending only a fraction of the money that has sustained (or not sustained) the latter. And they are just five points below out-of-form Tottenham Hotspurs, with eight games to go.

If Newcastle can win enough of these games to get above Chelsea and overtake Spurs, then it’s the Champions League. Oh well, you can dream.

In this blog I have been very critical of owner Mike Ashley in the past, and would still maintain that he needs to become better (or even just very slightly good) at communicating with fans. But it may well be that, contrary to what I had thought, his recipe for running a premiership club is right after all. Less of the silly spending, more strategy and tactics. And to be honest, it’s a more interesting approach.