Staff survey on restructuring and modularisation

Eoin Macollamh

You may be interested to learn what your lecturers think about the recent draconian changes at UCD.

If you go here:

http://www.ucdasa.org/

you will find the results of a survey conducted in April. For those who are very busy studying for exams, the "Newsletter" link at the top provides a summary and the "Summary Report"

My own view is that the restructuring that has taken place over the last 2 years at UCD is nothing short of a huge step backwards. At a time when most large bureaucratic organisations have discovered the virtues of devolving autonomy down to the level of those who know, this administration has imposed a centralised and almost feudal system where the important decisions are made at the top and handed down as faits accomplis and even decisions made at lower levels (about teaching and research) have to be passed upstairs to administrators who know nothing about the matters in question. Combine this with the fact that virtually everyone in a position of power, from College Principals to Heads of School to Vice Presidents, has been appointed from the top (and not on the basis of any kind of competition) and what you have is a system that runs on personal relationships. The old procedures have largely been replaced. This means that getting resources (for a College, for a School) is largely a matter of knowing the right people and ingratiating yourself to them.

In other words, far from being the great modernising force that they claim to be, this administration has taken UCD back to a bygone era of cronyism and centralised management. No world-class university that I can think of is run in this way. That is because few administrations elsewhere would have the arrogance to think that they know more about everything than do the lecturers and professors and few Boards of Trustees (or Governing Authorities) are as filled with know-nothings as is the one at UCD.

As a member of academic staff, I sincerely hope that the Students' Union and students generally will wake up to what is happening. It might be helpful if the college newspapers would get it together to write about such matters. UCD is being remade into a corporate university where money and cronyism are the only things that matter. You can just imagine where teaching and research fit into such a programme.

[By the way: this is not a post about modularisation. Modularisation is largely a good idea, although it has predictably been poorly implemented by the amateurs running things].

singingstranger

Eoin Macollamh wrote:

It might be helpful if the college newspapers would get it together to write about such matters.

Isn't this exactly the same survey that was leaked to the College Tribune who covered it at great detail?

Eoin Macollamh

singingstranger wrote:

Isn't this exactly the same survey that was leaked to the College Tribune who covered it at great detail?

No. That survey was anecdotal: an academic member of the Governing Authority asked for comments and then circulated the comments he received.

This new one has been done by the Academic Staff Association and is more reliable, although one could also question the methodology in this case (as the administration is sure to do). The thing is, I'm quite sure that any scientific survey of academic staff will report similar results. From conversations with my colleagues in various disciplines, I have yet to hear a favourable opinion on this administration from anyone who wasn't a member of it.

As for the college newspapers, the Tribune story was, unfortunately, a one-off and the thrust of it was "UCD is Sh*te (so say the lecturers)." That's not really very helpful. What is needed is a sustained effort by the papers and the union to explain to students what the issues are and why they matter, for both current and future students. A university that is completely given over to corporate interests and that privileges 'profitable' over 'unprofitable' research and research over teaching is not in the interests of the students, the lecturers or the nation.

UCD is already a vastly different place than it was before Brady took office. I wish I could say that that was good, but not all change represents progress. Brady's regime has taken us back 50 years relative to the universities he thinks he's competing with, for the simple reason that highly bureaucratic and centralised organisations are inadaptive: they cannot change as quickly to meet the needs of students and research as can more decentralised organisations in which those on the ground are given as much autonomy as possible. Most corporations have realised this. Most excellent universities are structured in this way because their administrators recognise their own limitations: they can't know everything about what everyone should be doing and certainly not more than the lecturers themselves. But recognising limitations on their power is not what Brady and his team are about....

Mr_Roger_Bongos

Just wondering, would the university consult any of its business lecturers when restructuring for efficiency? The quinn school is packed with lecturers who deal in this area.

Eoin Macollamh

Eoin Macollamh wrote:

You may be interested to learn what your lecturers think about the recent draconian changes at UCD.

If you go here:

http://www.ucdasa.org/

/snip

Interesting, I saw the results of this a few days ago.

Section 6 caught my eye:

6. Do you believe it is possible for UCD to achieve its stated aims (creating a research intensive university while offering the highest quality teaching and learning environment to a varied and diverse student body) with its current academic staffing levels?

No: 81.8%

pretty*monster

Unfortunatly none of this suprises me.


This is exactly what I was talking about in the NCAD thread btw

Irish Independent

Have been keeping an eye on this since any issues about restructuring could have direct consequences for other Uni's.

http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=50&si=1614579&issue_id=14046

Irish Independent wrote:

UCD staff vote on work to rule over changes

ACADEMICS at UCD feel like 'cogs in a machine' because of the way controversial reforms are being introduced into the country's biggest university.

Now the local branch of the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) are ballotting on a work-to-rule type action in protest against the manner in which the 'change agenda' is being managed.

A survey has shown dissatisfaction at the manner in which restructuring and modularisation are being pushed through.

In addition, the majority of those who responded said that they did not feel free to express their views on any topic.

The survey challenges the official view of support for the changes which has seen the number of departments slashed and the creation of new colleges to replace faculties.

However, an official UCD spokesperson pointed out last night that only a fifth of the university's 1,000 academics took part in the survey and that only eight in the College of Business and Law did so.

He also said that most staff had responded very positively to the extra workload in the interest of the students.

But Gerald Mills, who chairs the local branch of the IFUT, insisted that there was widespread dissatisfaction and a feeling that the union should take a stand.

He said that under Sustaining Progress their capacity to take conventional industrial action was limited.

Among their grievances are what they say is the excessive administrative burden on academic staff and the appointment of persons to significant positions without open, transparent and fair procedures.

John Walshe

pretty*monster

Ok... so what can students/the su do about this?

Umaro

To be honest, I don't really care and I don't think it matters much.

Vainglory

Umaro wrote:

To be honest, I don't really care and I don't think it matters much.

LOL....

pretty*monster

Oh... apathy... that's suprising

Vainglory

No Kate, apparently it doesn't matter much if our lecturers take industrial action and we miss a load of lectures. Like in Queens this week...industrial action meant that nearly 1 in 10 exams had to be cancelled.

But sure, I didn't want a degree anyway. It doesn't matter AT ALL!

Eoin Macollamh

The Brady administration is not unlike the Bush administration: no matter what the evidence produced, just keep saying it's not true. Though they never surprise me, you really have to wonder what, if anything, those in charge know about industrial relations. It doesn't seem like a good strategy to me, when confronted with overwhelming evidence of staff disgruntlement, to continue to deny that it is the case. "See? Everything is great! What? Can't hear you! Did you say something?

It's not a mystery what the staff think about Brady's regime. Ask around. My administrative workload has increased many-fold since Brady came in. And most of it is useless committee meetings where we are just told what the higher ups have decided for us now. Then there's the incredible time wasted when the admin tells us to do something and then changes their mind or realises that they hadn't prepared the ground sufficiently...

"only 8 in the College of Business and Law" Are they kidding? So it's OK because it's only 4 out of 5 Colleges.

Meanwhile, the story that's been lost in all this is that the administration that continually pooh-poohs every survey of academic staff has refused to conduct a scientific survey of staff attitudes. This was the very reason that the informal survey (that was leaked to the Tribune) was carried out.

Why do they refuse? You get one guess...

As for what can be done: the SU should move for a survey (to be conducted by an organisation acceptable to staff trade unions and the administration as well as the SU) on staff attitudes to the restructuring.

Blowfish

Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't the lecturers have their own union? It may be better if the call for a survey came from that rather than the students, although coming from both would obviously work.
I do feel that it may also depend on what school people are in as to how they feel about the restructuring. I have talked to a few lecturers about this, and the ones I have talked to don't seem to mind this, although some feel that the focus on UCD being a research may affect the quality of the lecturing.
I do feel that a survey of the restructuring would definitely be interesting reading though.

TheVan

Eoin Macollamh wrote:

This new one has been done by the Academic Staff Association and is more reliable, although one could also question the methodology in this case (as the administration is sure to do).

Well obviously if the people you, who are promoting the results of this survey, feel the methodology is possibly flawed, then surely the college administration is fully entitled to challenge it?

Also you have to remember that Hugh Brady came into the college with these proposals and he was selected on both his personal qualifications and his plans for the college. Therefore the powers that be in the college obviously agree with what he says.

Basically, I feel that the college needed a good boot up the arse. The administration realised that the college was not going to change (and it needed change, that is recognised by most bodies, the government included) by merely asking individual, devolved groups to change. College-wide, dramatic change was needed.
The comparison with the USA is useful. In the USA there is the federal government (Brady et al) and individual state government (the colleges/schools). On the day-to-day running of the country and the states, the states get along just fine. However, when massive change is needed, such as abolition of slavery, civil rights and MediCare, the Federal government needs to lead the way.
The administration has the long-term vision.

Also, and this is the most important part...that survey is pants. Firstly it is a survey online that ANYONE can take.
Secondly, anyone can take it multiple times (on one laptop by simply clearing the cookies, or on multiple computers). There is no way that this survey can be taken seriously.

The_Minister

TheVan wrote:

Also, and this is the most important part...that survey is pants. Firstly it is a survey online that ANYONE can take.
Secondly, anyone can take it multiple times (on one laptop by simply clearing the cookies, or on multiple computers). There is no way that this survey can be taken seriously.

You forgot to add that the company which did the survey was called...
...*drumroll*.......
...Survey Monkey!

Blush_01

Umaro wrote:

To be honest, I don't really care and I don't think it matters much.

Sorry, but it does.

This is absolutely crazy.

ardmacha

Also, and this is the most important part...that survey is pants

No doubt, why doesn't the University have a proper survey, conducted impartially, with the results published and debated by all.

pretty*monster

ardmacha wrote:

No doubt, why doesn't the University have a proper survey, conducted impartially, with the results published and debated by all.

At least one Head of Department asked Pip Nolan to do just that. He was basically told to go stuff himself.
Last I heard he was pettitioning Governing Authority... but that was some time ago.

Eoin Macollamh

TheVan wrote:

Well obviously if the people you, who are promoting the results of this survey, feel the methodology is possibly flawed, then surely the college administration is fully entitled to challenge it?

Of course they are and I agree with you that the methodology is, er, pants. But the only reason we have to resort to such ad hoc surveys is because the administration refuses to conduct one. And we all know why that is. So let me ask you this: what kind of reform is possible if the academic and support staff are not on board? Have you any idea what kind of resentment is out there? Do you not understand how much useless make-work has been imposed on academic staff under this administration?

Take the much-vaunted Schools. These work fine where the former Departments that make up the school are homogeneous (History, notably). But for others, they are a ridiculous hotch potch. So what, you say. Well, the fact is, in some schools all of the important stuff that used to go on at the Departmental level still has to take place: the "subjects" (can't call them "Departments") have to meet just as frequently as they always did to work out the nuts and bolts of the delivery of the subject, which are all taken care of just as they were before. But superadded to this is now an extra useless layer of bureaucracy: the School. It has no function but to waste everyone's time and to provide a way for the admin to get their meathooks into everything by way of compliant (appointed) Heads. It used to be that if someone in a Department needed some money to bring in a visiting speaker or to throw a party for the final-year students or whatever, it was a simple matter of talking to the Department. Now everything has to go through the Head of School. What's the difference? 1) Heads of School are overburdened: the job is both pointless and too big; 2) Heads of School are less responsive, particularly to subjects outside their discipline.

All of this has made UCD a much less adaptive place: less responsive to the needs of students and less responsive to the needs of teachers and researchers.

I could cite dozens of examples of this sort of thing, where the administration is micromanaging absolutely everything. Here's another: the various Colleges have just recently handed down (from on high) the privileged "Research Strands." As far as I can tell, these were pulled out of some administrator's arse. The ones for the College of Arts and Celtic Studies are: Textual Culture, Material Culture, Popular Culture, Irish Studies, Early Modern, Atlantic Worlds. Now, it is a virtual certainty that anyone who wants any research funding from the College is from now on going to have to explain why their proposal fits in these research strands. What's wrong with that?

1) These research strands are completely arbitrary. I believe they were thought up by a single individual who cannot possibly have the broad knowledge required to know what the entire College ought to be researching (because nobody can have that kind of knowledge).

2) They are out of date. The heyday of work on Textual Culture was about 20 years ago. The heyday for work in Popular Culture was 10 years ago. Who do you suppose knows what's happening NOW in any given field? Well, those people--the lecturers--are not going to be making the decisions. As a result, UCD risks looking very foolish indeed, in part because:

3) No serious research university does this. How does it work at a place like Harvard? It works like this: Departments have the autonomy to hire who they like within their budgets, the staff have the autonomy to research what they are interested in and no administrator is going to claim to know better than they do what that should be.

Also you have to remember that Hugh Brady came into the college with these proposals and he was selected on both his personal qualifications and his plans for the college. Therefore the powers that be in the college obviously agree with what he says.

Well, those powers that be (most of them) know very little about what a university is, the historical mission of universities in general and of this one in particular. The Governing Authority is stacked with yes-men whose qualifications are . . . well . . . managing to get appointed.

Also, rumour has it that Brady was on the search committee for the new President when he abruptly resigned and put forth his candidacy. This was after the search committee made this big show about how they were putting on an "international search" because the "old ways" just weren't good enough for the new UCD. And what do you know? The very best person in the whole wide world was sitting here right under our noses all along!

Please.

Basically, I feel that the college needed a good boot up the arse.

When you're standing on the edge of a cliff, sometimes a boot in the arse is counterproductive.

The administration realised that the college was not going to change (and it needed change, that is recognised by most bodies, the government included) by merely asking individual, devolved groups to change. College-wide, dramatic change was needed.
The comparison with the USA is useful. In the USA there is the federal government (Brady et al) and individual state government (the colleges/schools). On the day-to-day running of the country and the states, the states get along just fine. However, when massive change is needed, such as abolition of slavery, civil rights and MediCare, the Federal government needs to lead the way.
The administration has the long-term vision.

Really. OK, please explain to me why restructuring was needed? I'll tell you why: because they had to be seen to be doing something. So they did what they knew how to do: rearrange things so as to increase their control.

But this sort of centralisation is not a modernisation in any sense. Even car manufacturers today recognise that an organisation where workers are given autonomy and consequently allowed to invest themselves in their jobs is superior to one that is controlled from the top. Decentralisation and the devolution of authority are the watchwords in most modern bureaucratic organisations and for a very simple reason: decentralised organisations are more adaptive. If every decision has to be passed up the line to people who know less about the decision and the criteria involved than those doing the passing, the end result is a kind of cumbersome inefficiency. Which is why the sort of centralised and authoritarian management structure that has just been implemented at UCD is completely out of date in the business world to say nothing of in forward-looking universities.

So, yeah, he brought in some change: and the University has regressed 50 years as a result.

singingstranger

Eoin, do pardon me if this seems a little bit ignorant on my part (it's exam season and I'm knackered, I do apologise) but are you actively trying to bring about change at staff level yourself?

I envy the academic who isn't bothered about being awake at 1:20am.

Eoin Macollamh

singingstranger wrote:

Eoin, do pardon me if this seems a little bit ignorant on my part (it's exam season and I'm knackered, I do apologise) but are you actively trying to bring about change at staff level yourself?

Absolutely. I can't tell you too much about it though, because it would make me more identifiable and my anonymity is important to me (given the nature of the current regime). Suffice it to say that I'm very active at Subject, School and College level.

I envy the academic who isn't bothered about being awake at 1:20am.

I've actually been correcting exams! I've always been a bit of a night owl anyway.;)

Blush_01

Not making any assumptions as to who you are or what you work in, but you sound like a creative writer to me. I've never met a creative writer who didn't burn truckloads of midnight oil, regardless of breed, speed or creed.

I like what you're trying to do. Let me know if I can help at all, even if it's just circulating things. (I like circles. But that's an aside.)

TheVan

You can say a lot of things about Brady, but at least he can conduct a proper survey

Eoin Macollamh

TheVan wrote:

You can say a lot of things about Brady, but at least he can conduct a proper survey

What evidence is there of that?

He hired the Washington Advisory Group because he knew they'd tell him what he wanted to hear. What reason is there to believe that he wouldn't make sure a survey did the same?

dajaffa

Could anybody tell me what effect a work to rule strike would have in college. The teachers one caused problems because there was nobody there to supervise the (mostly underage) students. Lecturers don't have supervision duties, so what is it that would be affected?

TheVan

Whoah now.....don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily agree with everything Brady is doing. However I also have a strong dislike for crappy polling.

The Washington Advisory Group has advised, among others....

UNIVERSITY CONSULTING

Arizona State University
Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 Center
Georgetown University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Koç University, Turkey
Lewis & Clark College
Michigan Technological University
Oak Ridge Associated Universities
Oakland University
Ohio State University
Trinity College/University of Dublin
University College Dublin
University of Pennsylvania

R&D STRATEGIES
Lucent Foundation/Industrial Ecology Program
Monsanto, Washington University and the University of Missouri
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development
Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America
Smithsonian Institution/National Museum of Natural History
Southeastern Universities Research Association
Southwest Research Institute
U.S. Department of Energy

INNOVATION AND COMPETITIVENESS

University of North Carolina
Washington State Technology Alliance
U.S. House of Representatives

LEADERSHIP ADVICE
Brown University
Carnegie Mellon University
Case Western Reserve
Emory University
Isaacson Miller
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
MCNC
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stanford Hospital and Clinics
Texas A&M University
University of Missouri, Kansas City
University of South Carolina
U.S. House of Representatives

....Do not compare that organisation to Survey Monkey

Also maybe they told him what he wanted to hear, because he was right (not saying he is but saying there is that possibility). The opposition to the current administration cannot be taken seriously until they do a proper survey and a proper study with real alternatives

Eoin Macollamh

As it turns out, according to this, the Governing Authority agreed yesterday:

that a formal, independent survey of staff and student attitudes
should be conducted in the period January-March 2007 as part of an external review of the implementation of the UCD Strategic Plan. A report will be made to the September meeting of the Authority on the conduct of this review.

Typical. When we want something from them it's: "mañana!" When they want something from us, it's announced on a Tuesday and due on the previous Friday.

Red Alert

I think the practice of appointing yes men to positions like Head of Schools needs to stop. Thank god in the School of Electronic, Electrical and Mechanical Engineering the E&E department is still operating more or less on its own, and the professor who was the head of department is now the head of subject. I wouldn't like the Head of School to start poking his nose in where it wasn't wanted, as the Mech department runs totally differently from I what i hear from friends in mech.

Open competition should be the order of the day for -ALL- appointments. Brady's sitting on the commitee should have ruled him out of the running despite resigning.

TheVan

Yeah....hate the sound of being shot down alright...