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Possible merger of TCD and UCD

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    #32
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    Boston wrote: »
    They are largely separate entities with little interaction with the "university". Like little forgotten sheep.

    Yeah, like King's, Cambridge and Merton, Oxford... "forgotten sheep"


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    #33
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    You'd feel a bit sorry for the poor UCDD'ites. It's the next phase in their ongoing identity crisis.

    They spend millions on "re-branding" the university (whatever that means), yet they still maintain the proper coat of arms for emblazoning on their degree parchments. Now that some bright-spark in government has decided to simply "disband" the NUI, it leaves UCD in a bit of a mess in terms of historical continuity.

    Personally, I think they should rename "UCD" Newman College and get the Chief Herald of Ireland to grant them a new coat of arms.


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    #34
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    Back in the first half of the 20th century Trinity and UCD shared what was then the Veterinary College of Ireland in Ballsbridge. For every subject there were the Trinity lecturers for Trinity students, and UCD lecturers for the UCD students running the courses side by side, too competitive to collaborate and too self important to consult each other in college clinics.

    Is that not exactly the kind of disaster this move would end up with - Intense competition for funding and a huge beauraucratic mess except on an enormous scale?


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    #35
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    In fairness UCD is only what, €13 million in the red, I'd hardly call this crippling debt given the money one academic managed to bring in with one grant alone. Apart from Brady sacking some staff, bringing in short term contracts, abandoning the "gateway" architecture project then I seriously doubt anyone in Trinity should be worried about its financial endowment going to Belfield in any merger situation.


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    #36
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    Back in the first half of the 20th century Trinity and UCD shared what was then the Veterinary College of Ireland in Ballsbridge. For every subject there were the Trinity lecturers for Trinity students, and UCD lecturers for the UCD students running the courses side by side, too competitive to collaborate and too self important to consult each other in college clinics.

    Is that not exactly the kind of disaster this move would end up with - Intense competition for funding and a huge beauraucratic mess except on an enormous scale?

    The problem is that the idiots who are making these decisions are not academics, they're bean counters/career politicians. Their life-span is on the order of 5 to 10 years. Trinity has been around for 400 years - and that has not come about by accident.

    It's our College, not the State's. The Fellows will decide what's best for Trinity.


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    #37
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    Back in the first half of the 20th century Trinity and UCD shared what was then the Veterinary College of Ireland in Ballsbridge. For every subject there were the Trinity lecturers for Trinity students, and UCD lecturers for the UCD students running the courses side by side, too competitive to collaborate and too self important to consult each other in college clinics.

    Is that not exactly the kind of disaster this move would end up with - Intense competition for funding and a huge beauraucratic mess except on an enormous scale?

    Yeh but you have to remember the massive sectarianism and historical rivalry on both sides that existed then, I mean for feck sake if you were RC and wanted to go to Trinity you need a dispensation from the bishop up until 1970. If both places can cooperate on research and carry that out well, wouldn't a merger not just formalise this? I'm probably wrong and it could go horribly, but it could work well. The fact is you wont know till its tried.


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    #38
    Doug Cartel
    Registered Users Posts: 2,188 ✭✭✭Doug Cartel


    El Siglo wrote: »
    In fairness UCD is only what, €13 million in the red, I'd hardly call this crippling debt given the money one academic managed to bring in with one grant alone. Apart from Brady sacking some staff, bringing in short term contracts, abandoning the "gateway" architecture project then I seriously doubt anyone in Trinity should be worried about its financial endowment going to Belfield in any merger situation.

    €13M is nothing, and if you run at a surplus you get less money next year. Back in my last job we had guys working on data-sets that would have cost the university several million in project buy-in money. €13M just means they bought in to one or two too many things this year.

    I would object to any merger being used to cover up deeper down money flow problems though. Look at what happened with the PPARC/CCLRC merger in the UK a few years ago to see where that gets you.


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    #39
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    The fact is you wont know till its tried.

    Trinity is not volunteering for experiments thank you very much. Especially experiments that put it's reputation at risk.


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    #40
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    The problem is that the idiots who are making these decisions are not academics, they're bean counters/career politicians. Their life-span is on the order of 5 to 10 years. Trinity has been around for 400 years - and that has not come about by accident.

    True, they are idiots but those are the only people that go into politics in the first place.:D
    It's our College, not the State's. The Fellows will decide what's best for Trinity.

    Listen, it doesn't matter who owns the place. But when the state pours money into a university it expects something in return. Trinity might have been around a lot longer than this state, but it's this state that pays the undergrad fees and pours money through the SFI, IRCHSS, IRCSET, EPA etc... then you can be sure that they'll have a voice in how the place is run. I don't like it as much as anyone else but that's the situation we're in.


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    #41
    Red_Marauder
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,175 ✭✭✭Red_Marauder


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Yeh but you have to remember the massive sectarianism and historical rivalry on both sides that existed then, I mean for feck sake if you were RC and wanted to go to Trinity you need a dispensation from the bishop up until 1970. If both places can cooperate on research and carry that out well, wouldn't a merger not just formalise this? I'm probably wrong and it could go horribly, but it could work well. The fact is you wont know till its tried.
    It wasn't the relic of sectarianism, students themselves seem to have enjoyed one another's company. It was people trying to be efficient by sharing facilities, in the most obtuse way possible.
    I'm afraid that's what this would turn into. Imagine two medical deans, two engineering deans, and two science deans all trying to out-do the other for funding or facilities or trying to pawn academics, I think it would all get pretty nasty and not very collaborative at all, to be honest.

    Having had a lot of contact with the administration people running UCD recently, and their Kremlin-style bureaucracy, I shudder to think how much worse it would be if you combined it with its sister administration. You'd end up with some incestuous, mentally defective monster. with a tail.


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    #42
    Doug Cartel
    Registered Users Posts: 2,188 ✭✭✭Doug Cartel


    El Siglo wrote: »
    The fact is you wont know till its tried.
    Woops, I meant to address this in my last post. That sounds a bit gung-ho for my liking. I don't think this is something to be rushed into, but it's worth a serious look.


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    #43
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Doug Cartel wrote: »
    €13M is nothing, and if you run at a surplus you get less money next year. Back in my last job we had guys working on data-sets that would have cost the university several million in project buy-in money. €13M just means they bought in to one or two too many things this year.

    I would object to any merger being used to cover up deeper down money flow problems though. Look at what happened with the PPARC/CCLRC merger in the UK a few years ago to see where that gets you.

    +1 on this!:D
    I wouldn't like it either if it was €50 million+ of debt, but come on €13 million is nothing in university terms. For God's sake Manchester United is £400 million in debt and it's still running, and in fairness a football club like them would have even higher running costs. Damn you Berbatov, lazy fecker!:D

    I would nearly say that this is a thread fail because all the argument is coming down to is posterity, bullshit history and 'my college is better than your college' mentality. Well here's the scoop folks, there's nothing after college right now, employment is fucked, people are back emigrating again. Eventually the state will not be able to sub the colleges anymore. Now we can all sit around with our thumbs up are back side, swords by our side with a glass of red wine and piss and moan endlessly about how tradition is tradition and that's it. Or we can take the offensive and give our graduates (from both colleges) a fighting chance in the work place. At the end of the day a degree from the TCD or UCD means all the same thing when you're in a dole queue, nothing.


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    #44
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Listen, it doesn't matter who owns the place. But when the state pours money into a university it expects something in return. Trinity might have been around a lot longer than this state, but it's this state that pays the undergrad fees and pours money through the SFI, IRCHSS, IRCSET, EPA etc... then you can be sure that they'll have a voice in how the place is run. I don't like it as much as anyone else but that's the situation we're in.

    If Trinity has to bring back fees, then so be it. Might go some way to addressing the flippant undergraduate culture that currently exists. It would also put an end to a large part of the State interference in what ultimately is an academic institution (i.e. serving the needs of the economy is not our primary aim). Maybe the State should create a top-50 institution of their own to educate €30k a year drones to fill positions in multinationals? I can just imagine FF in charge of such an initiative: they'd fill up the board with their mates, who in turn sign cheques for their mates' companies, just as they do at the Institutes of Technologies up and down the country.


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    #45
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    I would nearly say that this is a thread fail because all the argument is coming down to is posterity, bullshit history and 'my college is better than your college' mentality. Well here's the scoop folks, there's nothing after college right now, employment is fucked, people are back emigrating again. Eventually the state will not be able to sub the colleges anymore. Now we can all sit around with our thumbs up are back side, swords by our side with a glass of red wine and piss and moan endlessly about how tradition is tradition and that's it. Or we can take the offensive and give our graduates (from both colleges) a fighting chance in the work place. At the end of the day a degree from the TCD or UCD means all the same thing when you're in a dole queue, nothing.

    This is not the first time Trinity College, Dublin has been through a recession.


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    #46
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Red_Marauder wrote: »
    It wasn't the relic of sectarianism, students themselves seem to have enjoyed one another's company. It was people trying to be efficient by sharing facilities, in the most obtuse way possible.
    I'm afraid that's what this would turn into. Imagine two medical deans, two engineering deans, and two science deans all trying to out-do the other for funding or facilities or trying to pawn academics, I think it would all get pretty nasty and not very collaborative at all, to be honest.

    Apologies for jumping to that conclusion. You make a good point there, but you have to remember this was at a time when the NUI was in charge of UCD. The NUI is gone, UCD is a free agent, I would say it would be more amenable if given the chance to join up with Trinity. As for having two medical deans etc... well good old fashioned Irish bureaucracy and cronyism will solve that problem for us!;) I'd say that if the two places were to join up a number of these problems of staffing etc... could be hammered out and in the spirit of cost cutting I can safely say a number of academics from both places will be taking their pensions if given the chance.
    Having had a lot of contact with the administration people running UCD recently, and their Kremlin-style bureaucracy, I shudder to think how much worse it would be if you combined it with its sister administration. You'd end up with some incestuous, mentally defective monster. with a tail.

    I could have said the same thing about the Student Records office! It's like something out of Gorky Park!:D Awful place, they manage to make you feel like shit no matter what you go in for!


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    #47
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Apologies for jumping to that conclusion. You make a good point there, but you have to remember this was at a time when the NUI was in charge of UCD. The NUI is gone, UCD is a free agent, I would say it would be more amenable if given the chance to join up with Trinity. As for having two medical deans etc... well good old fashioned Irish bureaucracy and cronyism will solve that problem for us!;) I'd say that if the two places were to join up a number of these problems of staffing etc... could be hammered out and in the spirit of cost cutting I can safely say a number of academics from both places will be taking their pensions if given the chance.

    UCDD's identity crisis is your problem, not Trinity's.


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    #48
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    This is not the first time Trinity College, Dublin has been through a recession.

    No, and it wont be last time either, but at least it would be nice that after your undergrad or postgrad that your college actually gave a shit about you and tried to give you a chance at gaining employment. Not every student goes to college to become the next Russell or Derrida, some go to college believe it or not to gain a set of qualifications so that they can be productive members of society and contribute to the tax base. Even some TCD students believe it or not, go to Trinity for this very same reason!;)


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    #49
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    UCDD's identity crisis is your problem, not Trinity's.

    It's not my problem, I don't go to UCD. Sounds like your doing a spot of trolling to be honest.


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    #50
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    No, and it wont be last time either, but at least it would be nice that after your undergrad or postgrad that your college actually gave a shit about you and tried to give you a chance at gaining employment. Not every student goes to college to become the next Russell or Derrida, some go to college believe it or not to gain a set of qualifications so that they can be productive members of society and contribute to the tax base.

    Trinity aspires to produce high quality academics, not high quality employees. High quality Trinity graduates who make good employees are a by-products of a much bigger agenda.

    If you want to make money: my advice is to go and learn how to sell stuff. No university can teach you sales. In America, it's norm rather than the exception for a company's top sales guy to make more than the company president.


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    #51
    Boston
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,163 ✭✭✭✭Boston


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    Yeah, like King's, Cambridge and Merton, Oxford... "forgotten sheep"

    They're not trinity campus satellites, your point is null.


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    #52
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    Boston wrote: »
    They're not trinity campus satellites, your point is null.

    Why are you being so aggressive tonight?


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    #53
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    Trinity aspires to produce high quality academics, not high quality employees. High quality Trinity graduates who make good employees are a by-products of a much bigger agenda.

    If you want to make money: my advice is to go and learn how to sell stuff. No university can teach you sales. In America, it's norm rather than the exception for a company's top sales guy to make more than the company president.

    Yes high quality academics is one thing, but I can't take that to the bank teller on college green can I now? "Yes, I'd like to make a withdrawal, is it okay if I use my abilities to analyse cation exchange in fluvial systems as collateral?" Obviously, you TCD doesn't just produce mindless employee robots. However, "we all have to pay the mortgage" and that's the whole point of a modern university education, well since the 19th Century anyway. If you want academic prowess, do a masters or PhD. If you want a good chance of employment which requires certain skills a degree is a great place to start off. And if you believe every student comes into Trinity to become an academic then at best you're living in an Ivory Tower fantasy or at worst are completely deluded, and if you think I'm wrong ask a BAI student or Pharmacy or OT student why they're in TCD. 99% of the time they just want to get a job at the end of their degree.


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    #54
    Alex_Jones
    Closed Accounts Posts: 83 ✭✭Alex_Jones


    El Siglo wrote: »
    Yes high quality academics is one thing, but I can't take that to the bank teller on college green can I now?

    Yes you can when you manage your university in such a way that your endowment can support the university's agenda.

    Oh, like: Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, University of California, etc.

    We need to charge fees to all students and focus on building that €250m endowment. The College simply cannot support 15,000 students as it is, yet the Provost is talking about increasing that number by 3,000 over the coming years. What planet is he living on?


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    #55
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    Thought I might lighten the mood!:D

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJTBPdVpdMc


    Every college is struggling, I seriously doubt he'll attract an extra 3,000 though (I wouldn't go to college now with the way this shit hole country has gone). Sure we'll see what happens!


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    #56
    D.R cowboy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 698 ✭✭✭D.R cowboy


    1. The first reason this wont happen is because trinity is still owned by Britain.

    2. Trinity is making too much money off international students to ruin their reputation by changing it's name ..eg Trinity college on a degree will get you a job anywhere in the world

    3. Trinity is in another class of it's own, enough said!!!!


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    #57
    El Siglo
    Registered Users Posts: 3,803 ✭✭✭El Siglo


    D.R cowboy wrote: »
    1. The first reason this wont happen is because trinity is still owned by Britain.

    2. Trinity is making too much money off international students to ruin their reputation by changing it's name ..eg Trinity college on a degree will get you a job anywhere in the world

    3. Trinity is in another class of it's own, enough said!!!!

    You forgot this.:D
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxFjQzgkqHk


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    #58
    devinejay
    Registered Users Posts: 639 ✭✭✭devinejay


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    Why are you being so aggressive tonight?

    Cause he's Boston.


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    #59
    Boston
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,163 ✭✭✭✭Boston


    Alex_Jones wrote: »
    Why are you being so aggressive tonight?

    Natural disposition.


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    #60
    griffdaddy
    Registered Users Posts: 3,412 ✭✭✭griffdaddy


    It always makes me chuckle how Trinity students think their college is some kind of world-renowned international power-house of academia when the truth is that it's not very well known at all, anyone who's studied abroad will probably know this. Ucd isn't either though, and it's also amusing when you hear students from there (particularly commerce students) talking as if they just graduated from Harvard Business School or something. If you wanna know who the big boys of Europe are, or at least who're going to be look at organisations like LERU. These guys are basically forming their own mega-research organisation through collaboration, and the EU loves them for it. Ireland should be trying to get one of our universities in there if we want to actually have a top tier university, otherwise we'll be left even more behind than we are already.


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    #61
    Podge_irl
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 25,831 Mod ✭✭✭✭Podge_irl


    Doug Cartel wrote: »
    1. It's not just a matter of size, but of critical mass.
    2. It's a necessary, though not sufficient condition.

    Oxford and Cambridge are no bigger than TCD.
    In Oxbridge, full incorporation involves the granting of a royal charter

    You're largely right regarding the requisites for becoming a full college, but not all colleges have a royal charter.
    Didn't the Fellow (I forget his name) who went up against Heggo in the last Provost elections want to build a new college where the Trinity enterprise centre currently is? It's a pity he didn't get elected. There could be a lovely little college (for perhaps 200 or 300 students) down there.

    The ship has pretty much sailed on making the University of Dublin a collegiate university. It's essentially impossible at this stage.


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