Three new "technological universities" to be created

nesf

Godge wrote: »

The 2010 Professor scale in UCD runs from €113,604 to €145,952 in six points (you reach the sixth point after five years service, not eight).

http://www.ucd.ie/hr/add/salary_scales/scales.htm

Professors take up about 10-15% of all university academic positions. According to this there were over 400 of them in 2007.

http://www.reviewbody.gov.ie/Documents/Report_No_42.pdf

According to this there were 3,429 other academics in the university sector at around the same time.

http://benchmarking.gov.ie/Documents/Benchmarking%2007.pdf


10-15% hardly represents a small fraction. I know of many professors appointed in their early 40s. It is beginning to manfiest itself as a problem as they are now blocking promotion prospects for those behind.

Let us look at the scales now. Link above shows UCD. Link below shows DIT (same as other IoTs as I understand, apart from Director and President posts).

http://www.dit.ie/hr/resourcing/leave/salary-scales/


Assistant Lecturer runs from 39,715 to 49,487 in DIT.
On the same comparison, it runs from 35,355 to 56,602 in UCD. Would prefer the UCD one myself.

Lecturer runs from 53,607 to 83,811 in DIT but from 50,807 to 81,452 in UCD. Not a huge amount of difference, DIT higher by a small amount but takes longer to get there.

But UCD have a post of senior lecturer that goes up to 94k, is this the same as sneior lecturer teaching in DIT which goes to 91k?

Above that we have the academic management grades in DIT, senior lecturer 2 and senior lecturer 3 which peak at 104,770. These are also below the max of Associate Professor of 110,058.

So, to conclude, the evidence suggests that salary scales are higher in UCD than in DIT across all grades apart from the Lecturer/College Lecturer grade where DIT is ahead by 2,350 but has a longer payscale.

1) Yes, I got the scale wrong, sorry.

2) In what universes is one tenth not a small fraction of something?

3) Are you comparing like with like? Are the same qualifications necessary to become a DIT lecturer, is a DIT lecturer expected to do as much research as a UCD lecturer? Etc.

Godge

nesf wrote: »

1) Yes, I got the scale wrong, sorry.

No problem

nesf wrote: »

2) In what universes is one tenth not a small fraction of something?

A fraction is a small part of something, less than the whole.

It would stand to reason that a small fraction is a part of a part. one-fifth of a half or something like that. Funnily enough, that is 10% which would support you. However, when you use an adjective in a mathematical sense, it becomes inaccurate and open to various interpretations. I can only go with mine.

As a rough guide, when I see the word "small fraction" I tend to associate it with a small percentage (less than 10%). I would then classify a tiny fraction as something in the range of 1 -3 %.

There is also a relativity factor. Obviously, if you have hundreds of grades of lecturer, 10-15% is a huge fraction. Where, you have 5-6 grades, in my opinion, you would want one grade to be substantially less than the others to justify describing it as a "small" fraction. When you look at the numbers, you find that there are 220 Associate Professors (less than the 400 Professors) and 663 Assitant/Junior/below the bar lecturers which suggests that there are a lot of "small" fractions making the use of the adjective questionable.

nesf wrote: »

3) Are you comparing like with like? Are the same qualifications necessary to become a DIT lecturer, is a DIT lecturer expected to do as much research as a UCD lecturer? Etc.

No, the qualifications and the roles are different.

There is a greater element of lecturing in a role in DIT and a lesser role of research. The qualifications are also different. A university would generally require a PhD or at the least, that the applicant be currently completing one. DIT would like that, but would insist on three years' real-life working experience.

These differences strike to the heart of the difference between a traditional university and a technological university. A traditional university is research-led while a technological university is research informed and focussed on innovation, industry interaction and applied research. Something like this:

http://www.dit.ie/hothouse/

or this

http://www.rubiconcentre.ie/index.php/about-us/the-centre/centre-overview

starlit

I thought was for all the IT's in munster specifically itt, cit and wit. Lit was mentioned too either with or instead of wit.

Godge

doovdela wrote: »

I thought was for all the IT's in munster specifically itt, cit and wit. Lit was mentioned too either with or instead of wit.

here is the press release from the Department

http://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2013-Press-Releases/PR-%202013-%2005-%2030.html


It mentions three


"The Minister is also instructing the HEA to begin to implement the report's recommendations that will result in the consolidation of three groups of institutes of technology to progress towards attaining Technological University status. The three are:
The Dublin Institute of Technology, the Institute of Technology Tallaght and the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown
The Cork Institute of Technology and the Institute of Technology, Tralee
The Waterford Institute of Technology and Carlow Institute of Technology. "

T runner

The roots of all this are in the Bord Snip report. It ahs nothing to do with Waterford wanting to be a University etc. although id concede that RTCs wanting to become universities has contributed to the fall in standard of our qualifications here.

There have been several reports since including an international body recommending amalgamating Trinity and UCD to form an International class University along the lines of Copenhagen, with subsequent research capabilities. That was thrown out immediately.

Anyway, these colleges will form strategic "clusters", and in time would hope to become Technical Universities.

An Bords snips motivation was along the lines of 10 less Presidents, Financial controllers, Registrars salaries etc. equals a saving of 10 million per annum.

I saw a seminar where a BT futurologist claimed that predictions in the business world could now only be made 3 years in advance.

Companies will stop warehousing employees in expensive buildings (work from home or the Coff-ice.) Eventually they will stop hiring the jack of all trade employees and contract out individual pieces of work to the global market.
This means expertise will be all important which should mean that people's education will need to be very modular, with specific niche modules. The old system of several year degrees will fade.

I hope the new institutions will be dynamic enough for this change and even if they are, i hope the government invests any savings on a national Fibre broadband network so we can apply for this pieces of work on the world market.

MadsL

nesf wrote: »

Well, university and college are words that have lost all meaning really. UCC, NUIG and UCD are universities within a university which is fairly strange as a concept. .

Yes, I can see how strange you find the idea of Oxford and Cambridge "university" as a concept. After all, it has only been around since the 12th Century.

DylanII wrote: »

A University in the USA is not the same thing as a University in the Ireland.

Do explain, I am all ears.

Cody Pomeray

MadsL wrote: »

Yes, I can see how strange you find the idea of Oxford and Cambridge "university" as a concept.

They are comprised of small colleges within their Universities, often with specific focuses in the arts or sciences, or organised on gender lines. Not quite the same as a University within a University.

DylanII

MadsL wrote: »

Do explain, I am all ears.

In the USA a University is a collection of colleges. So there would be a School of Business Administration and a College of Engineering. The awards would be given by the university but the individual colleges are run separately.

In Europe a University is generally one school/college that is a public institution. There are no separate colleges, a university is no different to a college except that it offers higher level degrees (Phd)

[Jackass]

I think DIT would be worthy of a University status, especially when they are on their new campus. I think they've attempted to be recognised as one for quite some time.

Technological Universities are not something new or uncommon. Cal Tech probably being the best known one, often ranks ahead of the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard etc in university rankings (see here), regardless of what you may think of university rankings, at least shows the status of some of the tech universities.

Carlow and Waterford sounds like it's reaching a bit though. I don't know how well they would be able to resemble a university with current size and facilities. There's no mention of any investment going into the project to improve standards, so to just merge two ITs and call them a uni is a bit strange. Maybe even diminishes the accreditation in Ireland somewhat, as virtually all national institutions would now be a uni.

Presumably they would award their own accreditation and no longer have it awarded by HETAC once this is in place?

Cody Pomeray

[Jackass] wrote: »

I don't know how well they would be able to resemble a university with current size and facilities. There's no mention of any investment going into the project to improve standards,

Well that could be reflective of two things.

Firstly, the enhanced funding and resources that have been made available to the ITs over the years finally being acknowledged.

And secondly, the synergistic effect of collaboration and shared resources which is a de facto improvement in resources.

The latter is presuming that departments will be based at either campus, and not simply remain offering identical courses on both campuses. I might be wrong about that, but I'd hope they would be seeing this as an opportunity to re-acollacate their resources to maximise efficiency in this way.

MadsL

DylanII wrote: »

In the USA a University is a collection of colleges. So there would be a School of Business Administration and a College of Engineering. The awards would be given by the university but the individual colleges are run separately.

Separately? Lets take an example. http://facts.stanford.edu/administration/
Would appear to run as a single entity to me. I'm confused.

http://facts.stanford.edu/academics/

Seven "schools". Schools = Faculties? No?

Tzar Chasm

this all stems from a classic bit of idiotic stroke politics by Michael martin in 1997.

WRTC was established in 1970 along with all the other rtc's however by the 90's there was a vast difference between the level of courses being offered amongst these institutes, waterford wanted recognition of the strides it had made in the level and diversity of courses it offered, so a petition was made to upgradewaterford to the level of IT, putting on the same playing field as DIT, the only institute of that type in the country at the time, this also played into dit's plans to upgrade themselves to university status at some stage.

so the minister for education Niamh Breathnach granted WIT its current status, differentiating it from the rest of the rtc's and all was well with the world.

however, Cork rtc saw this and decided amongst themselves that they too deserved IT status, despite there being a university in cork and crtc not having the same depth of courses as waterford.

then there was a change in government, which landed a corkman at the helm in education, realizing that crtc could not justify being upgraded on its own merits, but also realizing that denying their petition would destroy his re election chances, Micky martin had the stroke idea of just upgrading all the rtc's, problem solved for him.

what this second upgrade did was destroy WIT's achievement, as the upgrade became a meaningless name change and we were lumped back into the rtc category, it also however had the unfortunate consequence of downgrading DIT into that same pool.

so now in a further slap to the face waterford is being told it can have a sort of University status, as long as it brings along its 'Ruprecht' Carlow

Godge

[Jackass] wrote: »

I think DIT would be worthy of a University status, especially when they are on their new campus. I think they've attempted to be recognised as one for quite some time.

Technological Universities are not something new or uncommon. Cal Tech probably being the best known one, often ranks ahead of the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard etc in university rankings (see here), regardless of what you may think of university rankings, at least shows the status of some of the tech universities.

Carlow and Waterford sounds like it's reaching a bit though. I don't know how well they would be able to resemble a university with current size and facilities. There's no mention of any investment going into the project to improve standards, so to just merge two ITs and call them a uni is a bit strange. Maybe even diminishes the accreditation in Ireland somewhat, as virtually all national institutions would now be a uni.

Presumably they would award their own accreditation and no longer have it awarded by HETAC once this is in place?

http://9thlevel.ie/wp-content/uploads/PR30-05-13_report_to_minister.pdf

It seems from Appendix A that you need to meet certain standards to become a technological university

ardmacha

The crooks have no interest in standards

In this report
However, these changes are not ends in themselves rather, they are key enablers to
ensure that the Irish higher education system can continue its long record of
contribution to Irish society and ensure that that record can continue even more
powerfully into the future.

this 6 weeks before they cut salaries according to what is expedient in the civil service without any reference to the needs of education whatsoever.

djpbarry

[Jackass] wrote: »

I think DIT would be worthy of a University status, especially when they are on their new campus. I think they've attempted to be recognised as one for quite some time.

There's actually quite a bit of opposition within DIT. Many of the staff would rather DIT set itself apart from the universities and focused on being a top-class IT.