Leeching off students?

Just noticed this on the TCD homepage...



Over the past few days/weeks most of the papers have been praising the Phil for getting Al Pacino, and rightly so. But given that a student society invited him, do you think it's correct for the Provost to be mooching* off the Student Societies for additional publicity?

Being controversial on purpose

ApeXaviour

It's his job.

90% of the photos I've seen of him he's shaking somebody's hands in a direct or indirect attempt to acquire either money or PR for the college. It's unscrupulous but so is what many solicitors do, it's still their job.

Time Magazine

Maybe he liked Scarface?

And maybe he wanted to bring Matt the Jap and, after all this years, say "Say hello to my little friend."

Tricity Bendix

Heggles owns this university. Its the least Al could do to stand beside him for a photo op.

Is it not customary for the Provost to greet noted guests who are visiting the Book of Kells?

Tacitha

No. Scholars and Fellows own the university (so he has about a 400th share, I guess).
And I suppose the taxpayers could be said to have a stake.
Natural enough that he should meet Al Pacino, but a Phil photo would have looked better on the front webpage, I think - far too often, there are three or four Hegartys in a row there, and even if I liked him I wouldn't see the point in that.
(He does actually look excited here, for once, which is a little sweet.)

Tricity Bendix

Tacitha wrote:

No. Scholars and Fellows own the university (so he has about a 400th share, I guess).
And I suppose the taxpayers could be said to have a stake.

Bloody predictable. Thats the crappy thing about the internet: its impossible to determine tone.

I wasn't being totally genious when I said that Heggles owned the university. Perhaps I should say he "owns" it in the "'hood" sense of the word. Dawg.

He represents College authority, and giventhat Al came to see this college, and the Book of Kells held in this college, I do not think it unreasonable for Heggles to be pictured beside him.

paperclip

Al looks nowhere near as excited as Hego.

Tacitha

I wasn't being totally genious when I said that Heggles owned the university. Perhaps I should say he "owns" it in the "'hood" sense of the word. Dawg.

He represents College authority, and giventhat Al came to see this college, and the Book of Kells held in this college, I do not think it unreasonable for Heggles to be pictured beside him.

Fair enough: I know you weren't serious, and I agree that there's no harm in him being photographed with Al. There's just that risk of him dropping in on boards and getting ideas above his station.

Tacitha

Al looks nowhere near as excited as Hego.

Strange that.

paperclip

Tacitha wrote:

Strange that.

Hego must have forgotten to call him Godfather....

Troglodyte

Is it just me, or does the expression of Hego's face look exactly like a small child's would while opening a big present?

Crash

To be truly honest, for PR purposes, I think a pic of Daire and Al would have suited the page better. College needs to get past this idea that admin/provost/SL etc. are the **** and start putting student achievements on the front page. They did well. The Phil deserve credit for it. Show some guts and put a student picture up on the front page. :P

shay_562

crash_000 wrote:

To be truly honest, for PR purposes, I think a pic of Daire and Al would have suited the page better. College needs to get past this idea that admin/provost/SL etc. are the **** and start putting student achievements on the front page. They did well. The Phil deserve credit for it. Show some guts and put a student picture up on the front page. :P

Exactly. Every newspaper article and TV piece about this focused on the fact that it was the students who had organised it and run the entire event; while the Provost should clearly be greeting important and famous guests to the college, it's showing poor judgement and a very clouded viewpoint to select this as the picture for use on the website.

gymrabbit

it's a great photo tbh they both look very well. maybe the ones with the students weren't as cool.

BOHS

Slightly unrelated but does anybody know where i could get a copy of the Al Pacino talk from Trinity?

Tricity Bendix

Aye, after seeing the website I think there is a bit of egotism going on.

Linkee to storee if you're lazee