UL President resigns

mollymac57

Widely reported that Dr Des Fitzgerald has today resigned from UL but will remain on for a few months and end his term later this year. Bit of a surprise or even a shock seeing as he’s only there about 3 years.

mgbgt1978

It seems he is concerned with the threat of him catching Covid when the students return.
It's fairly clear he doesn't need the Salary. So why be around 12,000 or so people from all across the country (who also have a fairly active social life) when the alternative is to retire at 67 .

Glenomra

A man who promoted the city centre campus and the development of the planned Strategic development Zone close to the Clare campus. I wonder what impact his retirement will have on either or both of these projects. Seemingly, UL is facing very significant financial pressure, due to loss of foreign students etc. Who will manage affairs in the intervening period between now and his actual retirement! Some serious decisions need to be made soon!. Has a retiring president the influence to implement the necessary changes.

Feets

I am worried for colleges in general. There is talks of teaching online for at least a year....maybe he disagreed with it and didn't qant to navigate it.

tommy249

Very interesting, and surprising reaction to this news on twitter. Seems like a lot of people will not be sad to see him leave. Alan English has an interesting and fairly damning thread on it. I always thought he was highly regarded and liked.

boege

There was a lot of concern within UL for the future finances of the University long before Covid 19 hit. Lots of high salary appointments.

He also centralised power into a small few people which began to slow decision making. This was exacerbated by a complete replacement of the executive management team. Lots of new appointments uncertain about their decision making powers.

I think some of his actions were far reaching and, if they worked, were going to take time to show but he was burning through cash. His counter was to grow student numbers by 2,000 over 4 years. However, there has been only limited investment in the teaching infrastructure to support increased student numbers. His biggest teaching investment was in IT which is proving a huge saving in the current climate. Covid could not have come at a worse time for his strategy. I would say the city project will have to be revisited as the scale of the financial crises in the educational sector is massive and only going to get worse. Mergers may be on the table in the not so distant future.

However, credit where it is due his approach to the lock-down saved lives with less than 10 staff and student positive cases reported to early May.

This retirement was a shocker within UL today and completely unanticipated.

stuckintipp

I know a few UL staff members and they have never said a positive word on the man nor his tenure. I am not up to date with the internal politics but wasn’t it very close to a full on strike a few months back, possibly around January.

osarusan

He was far from universally liked, that's for sure. Brought in a whole team and insulated himself with them. Interesting to see how that team will pan out with him gone.

There was a clash of opinions between 'comfortable staff are resistant to necessary change' and 'these changes are genuinely the wrong direction to go in.' And yes, he had to row back on some of his proposals and accept that he should have consulted UL staff more before making his plans. That was a few months ago.

Maybe he has just decided he couldn't be dealing with this shyte any more.

dominatinMC

I think it is something of an understatement to say that he was not well liked by UL staff, and will probably go down as the least popular UL president. However, it is not a popularity contest and, ultimately, his tenure will be judged by the policies he implemented and oversaw.

He was appointed during a colorful period in UL history (remember the Prime Time investigation c.2015) and, to his credit, I believe a lot of his policies were aimed at reforming the bloated and excessive administration of the university. His position and promotion of the city campus is also a positive. Nevertheless, some of his governance on the everyday running of the university will not be remembered fondly. Also, there are those more cynical than me that might liken this resignation to a captain fleeing a sinking ship! As others have alluded to, UL will be under severe financial pressure for the foreseeable, and maybe the incumbent president can't/won't operate under such restrictions...a bit like Bertie fleeing Fianna Fail before the crash :pac:

mollymac57

University of Limerick president comes under fire ahead of his early exit
http://dlvr.it/RY5nky