Waterford University discussion

mart 23

imacman wrote: »

Its a done deal and Simon Harris is pushing it on with Carlow at the wheel. All of the local politicians of all parties and local businesses , IBEC , local councilors have bought into the whole "TU game changer for the south east" crap without every caring about how it was all going to work. I wonder how they will feel when the HQ is setup in Carlow

There is too much pressure on WIT for it to pull out, they will just have to suck it up and watch a new regime take over. I feel really sorry for the present staff and all the retired and passed on people who worked so hard to build WIT up to what it is over the last 50 years.

If this TUSE comes about , will it have campuses in Kilkenny and Wexford also.

914

mart 23 wrote: »

If this TUSE comes about , will it have campuses in Kilkenny and Wexford also.

Most likely. That would explain why the likes of brendan howlin, phil hogan etc never pushed for WIT, then once TU came on the scene they were all over it looking at ways to slice it up and get campuses in their constituency

Johnboy1951

mart 23 wrote: »

If this TUSE comes about , will it have campuses in Kilkenny and Wexford also.

Why should it not?

The closer to where people live they can provide campuses the better as it will allow those who could not afford further education at a distance from home to get the education they deserve.

spaceCreated

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Why should it not?

The closer to where people live they can provide campuses the better as it will allow those who could not afford further education at a distance from home to get the education they deserve.

Its spreading the butter too thin before anything is established, get something that is fir for purpose established first then setup the ancillary campuses. Doing anything else will just result in a massive drain on resources away from research and education.

spaceCreated

imacman wrote: »

Its a done deal and Simon Harris is pushing it on with Carlow at the wheel. All of the local politicians of all parties and local businesses , IBEC , local councilors have bought into the whole "TU game changer for the south east" crap without every caring about how it was all going to work. I wonder how they will feel when the HQ is setup in Carlow

There is too much pressure on WIT for it to pull out, they will just have to suck it up and watch a new regime take over. I feel really sorry for the present staff and all the retired and passed on people who worked so hard to build WIT up to what it is over the last 50 years.

Some disgrace to see some "representatives" touting 5 million for the merger while the WIT has to use prefabs. I hope everyone laughs in their faces when they come calling for a vote.

azimuth17

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Why should it not?

The closer to where people live they can provide campuses the better as it will allow those who could not afford further education at a distance from home to get the education they deserve.

Carlow IT has had a campus in Wexford for decades and students refuse to go there. It has failed. Maynooth had a campus in Kilkenny and it failed. Limerick IT had a campus in Clonmel and it failed. These small campuses do not offer what students want. Unless of course you believe that the full spectrum should be provided in all the towns mentioned? Wexford and Kilkenny are on WIT's doorstep and it has served thousands of students from both counties very well. Ask yourself why is DIT, now TUD concentrating all its small campuses at Grangegorman?

914

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Why should it not?

The closer to where people live they can provide campuses the better as it will allow those who could not afford further education at a distance from home to get the education they deserve.

Multi campus set up does not work. Carlow IT already tried to create campuses in Kilkenny and Wexford both failed.

LIT tried the same in Tipperary and failed.

WIT have campuses around the city and are not working as they look to bring the arts back to the main campus taking it out of good shepards.

Some time ago now, but even when I was at WIT students based in good shepards were always complaining that they were missing out by not being in the main campus.

imacman

914 wrote: »

Multi campus set up does not work. Carlow IT already tried to create campuses in Kilkenny and Wexford both failed.

LIT tried the same in Tipperary and failed.

WIT have campuses around the city and are not working as they look to bring the arts back to the main campus taking it out of good shepards.

Some time ago now, but even when I was at WIT students based in good shepards were always complaining that they were missing out by not being in the main campus.

WIT are leaving college street and moving everything from there back to the main campus into the new building. WCFE are going to move into college street

914

imacman wrote: »

WIT are leaving college street and moving everything from there back to the main campus into the new building. WCFE are going to move into college street

Yes I know. Thats my point multi campuses do not work

fits

914 wrote: »

Multi campus set up does not work. .

Really?

https://www.uef.fi/en/university

fits

DIT has had multiple campuses for years.

BBM77

fits wrote: »

Really?

https://www.uef.fi/en/university

Posting a URL does not prove anything.

BBM77

fits wrote: »

DIT has had multiple campuses for years.

And they are moving to a single campus now because they believed it is better.

Dum_Dum

I don't follow the fortunes (or misfortunes) of WIT as much as others on here - but I find this whole thing stinks and smacks of a stitch-up. Along with our other woes, I find the whole situation depressing.

914

fits wrote: »

Really?

https://www.uef.fi/en/university

I could reply with a link to UL saying it doesn't work. What does the link prove?

Christy Browne

914 wrote: »

I could reply with a link to UL saying it doesn't work. What does the link prove?

UL have wheels in motion to open a campus in Limerick City. I agree that multiple campuses isn't ideal though.

CramCycle

Multiple campuses work fine if within a reasonably close proximity to each other eg Cambridge, DIT etc. Having them a few hours away from each other is essentially the same as having separate colleges/universities on the basis it presumes that they are able to function completely separately. TUD is a prime example of this if you look at the CAO. Now maybe they plan to change but at the minute, ITT is still ITT and offers the same courses, independent of TUD, they just call it TUD, Tallaght campus on the CAO. Its all a bit silly really.

invara

Multicampus does not work, demonstrably in Ireland... despite the excellent citation of the example of the University of Eastern Finland. A case I think we can all relate to. It is, of course, located in the least dense areas, of the one of the least densely populated countries in the world, is funded at more than double the rate of any Irish institution and is the 9th best university in Finland, having slipped down the THE ranking since merger. It also has been complex and messy, the original plan was to merger 15 Finish institutions and this was abandoned after 3 were completed unsatisfactorily. The purpose of the Finish mergers was to reaffirm the binary divide between full universities and polytechnics, to prevent new universities emerging.
Since 2000 there has been around 129 university mergers in Europe. The most common type of merger is a small centre being folded into a larger university, all five of the Irish mergers since 2000 are these kinds- St Pats into DCU, Frobel into Maynooth, Tipp Inst into LIT or Mary I into UL and TUD. They tend to work well enough, stabilising the overhead costs on small institutions and deepening the larger institution, but require consent of both partners to work. There have been around 40 mergers of two similar type peer organisations, mostly in France and Scandanvia.... most have been slow and expensive, blunting operational performance for five to ten years- some have fallen apart after merger.
There has never been a two similar type peer merger in Ireland. If you accept that WIT and Carlow are equal peers, a stretch for me (I think the split is closer to 25%-75%), then it would be the first peer merger in Ireland. It is an unproven experiment, in a global laboratory fully and partially failed prior experiments. So why do we not just go with what works- which is a full university, one core, properly funded and no messy merger that we know will not work. (sorry about making this into a TEDtalk)

Wanderer78

^^would transport issues play any part in the failure of spread out campus failures?

invara

No.... crushingly high running fixed costs of duplication and coordination that blunts the operational performance and reduces synergy is at the root of the problem of multicampus institutions.

Think for example of a shared university resource like a library- you need one at each site, typically with a deep reserve of books that individually are not often consulted. The larger the campus the lower the operating costs and the better the service. For example, architecture is located down in the Granary but horticulture is located on the main campus- both use similar books on design, art, philosophy, project management etc..... Having these two courses in proximity makes the all the stronger. Beyond the formal sharing, there is the massively important informal interactions, at the root of academic collaboration, which leads to research and better teaching. Those isolated from the larger campus always feel disadvantages- with reduced opening hours, services and high quality human to human interaction with related disciplines. Some feel this can be overcome by technology (so online library resources), but the cost of these are calculated on a per student basis so there is not much saving, indeed you now need two technology services sites and the coordaination that this entails. Rather the higher human/physical costs usually mean that multicampus institutions have less to spend on technological services than single campus sites.

Beyond that, the most important factor is that Irish students chose where to study using their hard earned CAO points and we can see the most attractive places to study are large, full service universities with all the clubs, sporting facilities, societies and vibrant student life that comes from a large student population.

That is why TUD are consolidating on Grangegorman, UU to Belfast, UCD did to Belfield and WIT wants to consolidate to the Cork Rd (from ~2-5km away on College St and the Granary). It is also why GMIT continually try to run down Castlebar (another push on this year), Carlow is not successful in Wexford (20 years after starting, for every Wexford student who goes to ITCarlow four go to WIT), Maynooth failed in Kilkenny and the Tipp Inst was a financial debacle. Multicampus is bad for almost all students, with the important exception of a small population of students without the resources/ability to commute or travel (who need grants/childcare/transport rather than poor quality remote services).

imacman

invara wrote: »

No.... crushingly high running fixed costs of duplication and coordination that blunts the operational performance and reduces synergy is at the root of the problem of multicampus institutions.

Think for example of a shared university resource like a library- you need one at each site, typically with a deep reserve of books that individually are not often consulted. The larger the campus the lower the operating costs and the better the service. For example, architecture is located down in the Granary but horticulture is located on the main campus- both use similar books on design, art, philosophy, project management etc..... Having these two courses in proximity makes the all the stronger. Beyond the formal sharing, there is the massively important informal interactions, at the root of academic collaboration, which leads to research and better teaching. Those isolated from the larger campus always feel disadvantages- with reduced opening hours, services and high quality human to human interaction with related disciplines. Some feel this can be overcome by technology (so online library resources), but the cost of these are calculated on a per student basis so there is not much saving, indeed you now need two technology services sites and the coordaination that this entails. Rather the higher human/physical costs usually mean that multicampus institutions have less to spend on technological services than single campus sites.

Beyond that, the most important factor is that Irish students chose where to study using their hard earned CAO points and we can see the most attractive places to study are large, full service universities with all the clubs, sporting facilities, societies and vibrant student life that comes from a large student population.

That is why TUD are consolidating on Grangegorman, UU to Belfast, UCD did to Belfield and WIT wants to consolidate to the Cork Rd (from ~2-5km away on College St and the Granary). It is also why GMIT continually try to run down Castlebar (another push on this year), Carlow is not successful in Wexford (20 years after starting, for every Wexford student who goes to ITCarlow four go to WIT), Maynooth failed in Kilkenny and the Tipp Inst was a financial debacle. Multicampus is bad for almost all students, with the important exception of a small population of students without the resources/ability to commute or travel (who need grants/childcare/transport rather than poor quality remote services).

Great points as ever from Invara , the geographically spread out multi campus model has a long list of failures in Ireland already mentioned here. That failure is a result of the main rational for these campuses , which not based on educational needs but local politics where the local TDs and councilors can point to a third level campus in their parish. Stories like this make me laugh
https://www.independent.ie/regionals/goreyguardian/news/council-in-talks-with-other-colleges-over-campus-after-it-carlow-snub-39049794.html
Look at this comment
'I'm blue in the face from talking about this,' he said. 'I was the one who proposed that we invite the President of the college and their attitude towards Wexford is deplorable. Wexford has connections to some of the top universities in the world and with the new road we're only an hour away from Dublin. We are an excellent option for a campus, particularly with the cost of living etc being so high in Dublin at the moment. I think that we should treat IT Carlow with the same disdain that they've treated us.'

Wexford is a small run of the mill county town , there is no actual need for a third level campus , just provide some adult ed - part time courses . They seem to think UCD and Trinity, Oxford and Cambridge are queuing up to open campuses in Wexford, what delusions of grandeur. Why should ITcarlow invest money in Wexford that they could spend in Carlow , there is no actual need for a campus there with WIT and ITC just 40 to 50 mins away.

Azatadine

In fairness there now, that is exactly the attitude that drives people in Waterford nuts when other places like Cork, Limerick and Galway come out with stuff like that about Waterford.

azimuth17

Azatadine wrote: »

In fairness there now, that is exactly the attitude that drives people in Waterford nuts when other places like Cork, Limerick and Galway come out with stuff like that about Waterford.

I agree with this to some extent and would not be underestimating Wexford. I worked in Wexford and loved it, but university status has been sought in Waterford since 1936 with little help from any of the counties around. Thousands of Wexford and Kilkenny students have had excellent third level education in WIT. Wexford politicians should be backing WIT, something they never did, because WIT is established and is central to counties in the region and easily accessible. Seeking to spread things around undermines the university idea as so ably shown by Invara in posts above, but achieves nothing. According to posts here, and Wexford papers, even Carlow IT is unwilling to do that despite having had a campus in Wexford for 20 years. It is very hard for Wexford councillors and politicians to accept the position as it is and back WIT, because of the idea that a university in Waterford means that Wexford will fail. That is nonsense, but has been circulated by some Wexford pols for quitea while. My fall back argument is that Trinity College in Dublin has been in existence since 1592 and has succeeded very well without the need to have campuses anywhere but Dublin. Same with UCC, UCG, UCD, UL, DCU etc.

azimuth17

Just saw this week''s Kilkenny people. Front page

"Hopes high for local university campus"

Kilkenny had Maynooth campus there for years and it failed. Why would another micro campus succeed? It all smacks of desperation that WIT might turn into a big university and impact on county towns like Kilkenny in some negative way. UL has been entirely positive for Ennis Co Clare. Why would it be different here? Keep doing what you always did and expecting it to succeed is silly. Have faith, push the development of WIT.

smellyoldboot

azimuth17 wrote: »

Just saw this week''s Kilkenny people. Front page

"Hopes high for local university campus"

Kilkenny had Maynooth campus there for years and it failed. Why would another micro campus succeed? It all smacks of desperation that WIT might turn into a big university and impact on county towns like Kilkenny in some negative way. UL has been entirely positive for Ennis Co Clare. Why would it be different here? Keep doing what you always did and expecting it to succeed is silly. Have faith, push the development of WIT.

"If you do what you always did, you'll get what you always got" - Henry Ford

invara

If Kilkenny manage to get a miserable footprint.... the next challenge will be to continually try to keep it alive....
Dreaming of being a future Mayo......

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2020/10/18/td-raises-fresh-concerns-over-future-strategy-for-mayo-third-level-facility/

invara

More news from Connacht ... now they want Castlebar to be made a stand-alone institute, after GMIT pulled courses that were not viable. This soap opera is our future in the SE with the Boland/Harris process promising micro-campuses based on political (rather than student) demand.

https://www.con-telegraph.ie/2020/10/28/make-mayo-gmit-campus-a-unit-on-its-own-proposal-to-minister/

Harry Palmr

Not a shock, its becoming clear that these unnatural constructs are inherently unstable, inbuilt tension will mean conflict and argument over thin resources, and the balance of academic power in SE for us.

Which one of us wrote this?

https://finneganwaterford.wordpress.com/2020/10/28/student-free-city/

smellyoldboot

WIT is dead. As Waterford itself is dying. Unless they pull the plug on this absolute shambles of an arranged marriage.

914

The Sunday Times Good University Guide has named WIT as the Institute of Technology of the Year 2021