Chair: Niamh O’Mahony (NM)
Participants: Prof. Graham Allen (GA), Loretta Brady (LB), Alan Foley (AF), Dr. Orla Murphy (OM)
NM introduces key issues under discussion: The impact of the economic crisis on universities, outcome-based models in education, and responding to the challenges posed by these.
LB: There is a need to gather the solutions being offered and look at what value the humanities has to offer – they are not calculable. In her research, LB looks at economics in particular.
AF: Examining bleak prospects for a PhD student who will be submitting in August: facing an abyss when he is finished. AF says he entered PhD during a golden age in higher education, e.g. bumper number of IRCHSS scholarships that were later curtailed.
OM: Professes ‘reckless optimism’, refuses to be other than optimistic: mark of humanists to have hope in the future of academia. Questions why it is worth being in academia and what academics can contribute – to use the language of economics, what is the Unique Selling Point of academia? Each person has a contribution to make to the academy and to Irish society.
GA: Agrees with OM’s ‘reckless optimism’, talks about situation in 1985 when he was also told there were no jobs. GA mentions seasons and cycles: eventually the gap created by not employing people means that employment will open up again, it can’t really be predicted. He highlights society’s concern with what is incalculable: university life mirrors that of society. Everything has to be accounted for and measured, but the fundamental qualities and benefits of teaching are incalculable. We can celebrate and theorise incalculability as a way of defending academia because incalculability is the essence of teaching.
NM: Feels lucky to be doing a PhD and to be funded, in the hope of opportunities when it is finished. Not an optimistic environment, but people here now have a responsibility to those who will come after. She mentions Hunt Report: how many students will it affect?
Topic of discussion: impact of economic crisis on the university.
GA: Rough calculation of €2 million impact on UCC
LB: Believes that the system of university funding needs to be revamped. US universities respond to the markets: LB does not agree with this – we have to be creative and positive about the future.
OM: Agrees with LB. She describes the problem with students moving from a Leaving Cert system to first year of university – originality should be rewarded. It takes a while for 12 years of education system to be undone and for students to learn a new way of thinking. She notes that the difference between funding for science PhDs and humanities PhDs is that students in the humanities are generally doing what they want to do, rather than getting funding from companies, etc.
AF: brings up question of US system
GA: responds by saying it is a very different system. Quotes survey about what PhD students do when they are finished in Ireland. 85% were still trying to get in to 3rd level education. Questions why so many students want to stay in academia. Asks the audience whether anyone definitely does not want to be in academia – no one admits to it!
AF: The idea of committing time and energy to something he doesn’t want to do is frightening – everyone has their ideal for after PhD.
GA: Having a job in academia does not mean focussing entirely on your subject – a lot of administration involved.
OM: Talks about the creation of networks of interested scholars in order to give oneself an edge in employment etc. A lot of happenstance involved in where one ends up after university. Says it would be glib to say it will work out for everyone in academia – many threats, e.g. tenure system changing. What is the role of the public intellectual? Moral imperative to work hard for the public – how can it be made reciprocal?
GA: Why would the state allow for academic freedom? The university creates enlightened citizens that go back to the state and populate it. Will this enlightenment continue? Or will universities be post-enlightenment? Universities being used to do R and D for companies is not the Enlightenment ideal. Arts and humanities are very strong – bring in all the students, make a large profit in fees. Funding should follow student choice.
OM: Academics must have confidence in discipline and ability to impart it to others, and be aware of their skills. Digital skills should especially be encouraged.
GA: Problem of academics being considered ‘over-qualified’: this has changed, which is a positive step.
OM: There is still a gender problem in academia, however. Women often don’t have much positive reinforcement in education, which affects confidence in ability.
Contribution from the floor (Avril Buchanan): Has noticed this in teaching Commerce students who are doing interview skills – women generally downgrade their own abilities in interview situations.
LB: We are not used to naming our skills.
OM: We have to adapt to technology, which is an enabling tool for representation to the world. Seeing oneself as a Luddite is not helpful, one has to be open to changing skills etc.
NM: How do you develop confidence, in real terms?
GA: Think about how you see yourself on the ‘map’ – how are the Arts and Humanities worthwhile?
AF: Quotes mantra that the sciences keep people alive, but the arts make life worth living!
OM: Put your work out there, move outwards into the college (e.g. the Doctoral Showcase), and beyond the university, so people know who you are and what you do.
GA: Networks of communication are much more available than before.
OM: Agrees – it is also about self-promotion. Utilising social networks is essential to finding opportunities and being able to use digital tools makes you more employable.
GA: Essential to eliminate dichotomy of humanities vs. IT
AF: Describes example of positive reaction to online profile – how one is represented to the world.
OM: E-portfolios can be used to showcase work, and eventually teaching from home will probably be a reality.
LB: ‘Re-skilling’ and flexibility – technology can facilitate education from home etc.
GA: Soon we will have the ‘digital university’, which will be built partly by current students, if they decide to participate.
OM: Discusses the following article:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&c=1&storycode=416190
Humanities creates the content for ‘virtual warehouses’. Idea of ‘intellectual adulthood’ when a PhD is finished.
Contribution from the floor (James Cummins): Capitalism encroaching on university life – could this happen in the humanities e.g. advertising companies sending in researchers in philosophy and psychology?
GA: Unquantifiable nature of humanities research has a negative side – it is impossible to say how it might be used.
OM: Problems with Google, Microsoft, IBM etc – colonising the space for knowledge.
GA: However, we also need more enlightened people working in Google – e.g. that might have stopped them from not finishing their open access project. Revolution will occur inside structures (the university, companies etc).
LB: One can’t exert influence unless one is involved in the structure that needs to be changed.
GA: Exploitation versus enlightenment – this is the dialectic we inhabit.
NM: Topic: How are staff and students responding to these challenges?
NM: Can we create a demand for areas we think are important?
LB: Online teaching etc is an example of this – a way of getting knowledge to a wider group of people.
OM: We can’t create licenses or patents, but we can open up new areas of knowledge. Talks about projects to get people outside the university involved in cultural pursuits, even research, and then giving them access to the results and knowledge gained.
GA: Academic tendency to be conservative ( in a positive sense, in wanting to conserve and preserve things), but we must also be open to the world in which we live. Move from a text-based to a visual culture, digitalisation allows us to return to the manuscript in many different ways – we must be alert to this and embrace it. We must consider what this is going to do to literature, for instance.
OM: We are probably 20 years behind in a lot of areas. Students should aim at being better than their supervisors by the time they finish and supervisors should facilitate this aim, otherwise they have failed in their role!
AF: Wouldn’t have written PhD if it wasn’t for the internet. The availability of medieval manuscripts online is great, but not everything is accessible in this way – more needs to be done.
GA: Archiving projects are happening, but these can happen badly or they can happen well – we should not assume that they are always positive.
OM: There is a new dynamic evolving in how things are seen and accessed, and a tension emerging between preservation and creativity.
NM: Opens the discussion to the floor – any ideas for how to do that here?
Contribution (Miranda Corcoran): The issue of transferable skills – we are left to our own devices to develop them, and are not very well qualified on paper. What about a PhD aligned with a teaching qualification, or internships with publishers etc?
OM: Digital humanities and the XML course – increasing employability. Internships and a relationship with the library need to be developed. On teaching: first year work is usually not recognised, although second year seminars are (as PhD students create their own material), but teaching in general needs to be recognised. Everybody doing a PhD should get the opportunity to teach a course.
LB: Teaching will probably be recognised from outside eventually (Teaching Council).
OM: Unfortunately, Cork University Press do not have room for even unpaid interns, even though there is a huge demand for qualified editors, etc, in Ireland.
LB: Will US model happen?
GA: Seems unlikely. In relation to teaching qualifications, employers don’t necessarily want teachers – they want to be able to teach you as well! Specific skills (like XML) are very useful.
Contribution (Avril Buchanan): Responsibility of individual students to go out and do these things themselves?
NM: Some are already doing this, getting extra qualifications themselves.
GA: University has ongoing discussion on how far to push students toward structured PhDs – should it become the norm, or should there be a two-tiered system as there is now?
Avril: Depends on value of the modules one can take as part of structure.
OM: In structured PhDs, choice of modules is removed. Freedom in unstructured PhD is connected with developing intellectual maturity, but one can also have the freedom to pick and choose modules which may help in developing that.
GA: Credit for modules makes this choice visible in a way it wasn’t before (e.g. language modules). Sometimes structure works very well, e.g. in social sciences. Graduate School is open to change and suggestions.
Contribution (Deborah Mellamphy): Skills such as programming are very much needed, and students may have to go outside the university to learn them.
OM: Everything is enriched by visibility of research, outside the unversity in particular. Creativity and skills can be showcased, as well as how to deliver knowledge to a new generation of scholars.
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