Hugh Brady on the telly tonight.

Pride Fighter

College President Hugh Brady is on a show called one to one after questions and answers at 11:40PM on RTE 1. It will be fascinating to hear his 'big plan' for the College and stuff so if you have nothing to do, like me, give it a watch. I am guessing I'll switch off after 5 minutes, how long will we all last watching him:pac:.

Tom65

I missed the start, but I didn't really learn much. My main grievance with him is lack of interest in Arts, but they didn't really touch on it. He was asked about culture in Dublin and UCD and started talking about business partnerships, which says a lot.

She asked some interesting questions, but didn't really follow up on them. He'd give his answer and then she'd move on. For someone of Hugh Brady's intellect (like him or not, the guy is smart), that makes it a very easy interview.

Pride Fighter

Yeah Tom, the guy seems to be quite smart, he is almost Obama like in his use of the word change. He seemed to know what questions would come up and answered them well. The interviewer never pressed for answers for certain questions and preferred to move on, she could have put him on the ropes more. His rhetoric about 4th level have been dealt with here, how can there be effective 4th level with the main Library cutting its opening hours?

Ernie Ball

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Yeah Tom, the guy seems to be quite smart,

You're easily impressed. He knows very little about what a university is, how to run one or, really, anything else outside of medicine. What ideas he has he seems to have got from 1960s management textbooks. The sooner we're rid of this guy, the better.

Économiste Monétaire

I liked his glasses. I also liked how he obviously had a chubby when he was talking about Harvard and its endowment.

I really liked how he lied about aiming to go up the rankings. I especially liked how he made undergraduates out to be cattle, just there to feed 4th level.

Oh and the woman asking the questions was terrible.

Tom65

Ernie Ball wrote: »

You're easily impressed. He knows very little about what a university is, how to run one or, really, anything else outside of medicine. What ideas he has he seems to have got from 1960s management textbooks. The sooner we're rid of this guy, the better.

I agree he treats 3rd level students as an inconvienence, but he's clearly smart. And does have nice glasses (for €250k p/a, I'd imagine one could buy very nice glasses). I can't imagine that interview convinced anyone who doubted him before.

What I dislike mostly about him is that he's never made an attempt to reach to the people who feel they've been aggrieved by him (ie, Arts and general 3rd level students). He just seems to plough on through.

Ernie Ball

Tom65 wrote: »

I agree he treats 3rd level students as an inconvienence, but he's clearly smart.

I see no evidence whatsoever of that.

Tom65

Ernie Ball wrote: »

I see no evidence whatsoever of that.

I'll start with his degree in medicine.



(PS. Why, oh why, am I defending Hugh Brady?)

seraphimvc

did 'where exactly is your office located in the campus?' question show up?or else i am frustrated :mad:

Chakar

I have a high opinion of Hugh Brady regarding his excellent work in reforming the academic system of which I was the first of many students to take advantage of in 2005/2006.

The One to One interview with Aine Lawlor was very interesting. It touched nearly all the talking points and issues. Hugh Brady has a strong vision of UCD in the future and how we are going to achieve this. With that he's anxious not to sacrifice the holistic spirit of education in UCD as helping the personal development of students as they enter third level education in UCD.

Hugh Brady also talked about funding in UCD and said that the level at which the quality of education of UCD will suffer is very close at the moment. I certainly hope that the Government reintroduces fees or deferred loans along with support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It's a no brainer to me when you look at the facts. It's either those two options or higher taxes.

Tan Princess

Anyone got a link to this? Was it on RTE?

simonrooneyzaga

higher taxes...

simonrooneyzaga

Tan Princess wrote: »

Anyone got a link to this? Was it on RTE?

was on rte yes but it hasnt been posted on the rte website as of yet.

Ernie Ball

Chakar wrote: »

I have a high opinion of Hugh Brady regarding his excellent work in reforming the academic system of which I was the first of many students to take advantage of in 2005/2006.

The One to One interview with Aine Lawlor was very interesting. It touched nearly all the talking points and issues. Hugh Brady has a strong vision of UCD in the future and how we are going to achieve this. With that he's anxious not to sacrifice the holistic spirit of education in UCD as helping the personal development of students as they enter third level education in UCD.

Hugh Brady also talked about funding in UCD and said that the level at which the quality of education of UCD will suffer is very close at the moment. I certainly hope that the Government reintroduces fees or deferred loans along with support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It's a no brainer to me when you look at the facts. It's either those two options or higher taxes.

What complete bull****. You must be a plant. You've got the cop-on of one.

Ernie Ball

Tom65 wrote: »

I'll start with his degree in medicine.

Once again: you're easily impressed. Plenty of people have degrees in medicine who are bone stupid.

Please point me to an intelligent thing Brady has said or written.

Pride Fighter

http://www.rte.ie/news/onetoone/
Thats the programme for those who missed it, just click on the link above Hugh Brady's picture and media player will play it for you.

Pride Fighter

Ernie Ball wrote: »

What complete bull****. You must be a plant. You've got the cop-on of one.

Ernie, while I agree with you to a degree on this thread (but not the above statement) and agree with you fully on the UCD payroll thread you cannot say things like that. We are all entitled to our opinions, no matter how zany or hair-brained.

Shazbot

Ernie Ball wrote: »

Once again: you're easily impressed. Plenty of people have degrees in medicine who are bone stupid.

Please point me to an intelligent thing Brady has said or written.

Oh come on, do you really believe that or are you just trying to start an arguement? How many people do you know with MD's? Let alone stupid ones.

Hugh Brady has an MD and a PHD, and has published numberous scientific papers with numberous collaboraters around the world and with UCD's diabetic reseach centre. A quick pubmed search (www.pubmed.com) of the name Brady HR will reflect this. He's also a member and chairman of the Irish Health Research Board, a member of the Irish Higher Education Authority and President of the Irish Nephrological Society.

Now please tell me how you achieve all of this while being stupid? Perhaps you should get off the Brady bashing band wagon and form opinions of him based on your reading into his profile and his actions, both good and bad. Yes he may rub people up the wrong way but these people are usually just looking for someone to blame and since he's the president of the university, he's an easy target for narrow minded statements like yours.

Back on topic, the interview was interesting alright. He seemed nervous at the start and stumbled a little on questions he shouldn't have. He quickly got into his stride though and there was no real pressure put on him by the interviewer.

Ernie Ball

Shazbot wrote: »

Oh come on, do you really believe that or are you just trying to start an arguement? How many people do you know with MD's? Let alone stupid ones.

Hugh Brady has an MD and a PHD, and has published numberous scientific papers with numberous collaboraters around the world and with UCD's diabetic reseach centre. A quick pubmed search (www.pubmed.com) of the name Brady HR will reflect this. He's also a member and chairman of the Irish Health Research Board, a member of the Irish Higher Education Authority and President of the Irish Nephrological Society.

Now please tell me how you achieve all of this while being stupid?

Excellent question. Here's the answer: you have the limited smarts required to master an exceedingly limited technical domain but not the sort of broad intelligence that would allow you to have real understanding of more complicated questions. Medicine doesn't require much in the way of thought (as opposed to the sort of cramming and assimilation of information that most benighted UCD students confuse with real knowledge and wisdom). And then, blinded by your ambition, you move into domains about which you know absolutely nothing (university administration). You think that the study of the historical and cultural role of the university is exactly the same as medicine and that rote learning will get you by. So you read a stack of books on "university management" written by consultants tied to big business and who would like to see the university work not in the public interest but in their interest. You even hire a stack of them. All of them argue in favour of a corporate university run in a managerial and bean-counting way and that serves the interests of industry. You think you're a profound thinker when you start the simple implementation of the simple (and woefully inapplicable) ideas you've learned.

We're talking about a man who doesn't write much (and what he does write is barely literate), who thinks in PowerPoint bullet points and who has turned UCD into a glorified academic sweatshop.

And, by the way, fifty cents to anyone who can prove that Brady even had tenure at Harvard. He didn't and he knew he wasn't going to get it. He was the equivalent of an entry-level lecturer. I've explained all of this in this post and following posts.

Ernie Ball

Pride Fighter wrote: »

Ernie, while I agree with you to a degree on this thread (but not the above statement) and agree with you fully on the UCD payroll thread you cannot say things like that. We are all entitled to our opinions, no matter how zany or hair-brained.

Ok, so why am I not entitled to mine?

Pride Fighter

Ernie Ball wrote: »

Ok, so why am I not entitled to mine?

You are but you cannot call people plants, even though it is a very mild name to call someone.

Shazbot

Ernie Ball wrote: »

Excellent question. Here's the answer: you have the limited smarts required to master an exceedingly limited technical domain but not the sort of broad intelligence that would allow you to have real understanding of more complicated questions. Medicine doesn't require much in the way of thought (as opposed to the sort of cramming and assimilation of information that most benighted UCD students confuse with real knowledge and wisdom).

True, in the sense of learning medicine to complete a degree. But complete crap when it's taken into the context of a hospital and practice of the medicine. That requires alot more than cramming.

And then, blinded by your ambition, you move into domains about which you know absolutely nothing (university administration). You think that the study of the historical and cultural role of the university is exactly the same as medicine and that rote learning will get you by. So you read a stack of books on "university management" written by consultants tied to big business and who would like to see the university work not in the public interest but in their interest. You even hire a stack of them. All of them argue in favour of a corporate university run in a managerial and bean-counting way and that serves the interests of industry. You think you're a profound thinker when you start the simple implementation of the simple (and woefully inapplicable) ideas you've learned.

Never was one for the administration stuff myself but you seemed to have missed an important step in the career of Hugh Brady. His research, PHD and post doctorate research where he published over 100 papers. Did you even open the link in my previous post or where you blinded by you're Brady hatred?

We're talking about a man who doesn't write much (and what he does write is barely literate), who thinks in PowerPoint bullet points and who has turned UCD into a glorified academic sweatshop.

See above, the man has writen nearly 150 papers with regards to renal physiology. I'm sure you'll just ignore the point anyway. Care to explain how UCD is a glorified academic sweatshop?

And, by the way, fifty cents to anyone who can prove that Brady even had tenure at Harvard. He didn't and he knew he wasn't going to get it. He was the equivalent of an entry-level lecturer. I've explained all of this in this post and following posts.

Yes, you've explained it but you haven't sourced any of your claims, so really it's just an opinion rather than a fact to me at this stage.

This thread is steering off topic, like most threads in the UCD forum. Can we keep it on topic. If you want to reply Ernie then do so via PM.

Ernie Ball

Shazbot wrote: »

True, in the sense of learning medicine to complete a degree. But complete crap when it's taken into the context of a hospital and practice of the medicine. That requires alot more than cramming.

No, it doesn't.

Never was one for the administration stuff myself but you seemed to have missed an important step in the career of Hugh Brady. His research, PHD and post doctorate research where he published over 100 papers. Did you even open the link in my previous post or where you blinded by you're Brady hatred?

Maybe you should try 'opening the link' and see where it gets you.

Publications in the sciences are a dime a dozen: they are almost always co-written with colleagues (with underlings doing the real work). They rarely involve thought of any kind and usually deal with questions that are microscopic in scope. It is perfectly possible to have dozens and even hundreds of publications in the sciences and still be a relatively benighted person.

Care to explain how UCD is a glorified academic sweatshop?

Sure. It's a place where, for staff, the only thing that matters is the quantity of publications, not their quality. Small wonder such a system was implemented by a man with one hundred publications (wow!). Who cares whether they say anything of any profundity: a paper is the same as any other.

Of course, I wouldn't expect people who think all opinions are equivalent to have an understanding of this.

Yes, you've explained it but you haven't sourced any of your claims, so really it's just an opinion rather than a fact to me at this stage.

Go ahead and work to disprove it.

Breezer

Ernie Ball wrote: »

Medicine doesn't require much in the way of thought

Ernie, quite frankly that's insulting, as well as plain ignorant. For many many years before it was considered a science, medicine was considered an art.

Doctors not only have to have a huge amount of stored knowledge, but fantastic interpersonal intelligence for forming relationships with patients and their families, for being able to not only diagnose but order the right investigations based on a combination of what a patient tells you, what they don't tell you, what their family tells you, what their family doesn't tell you, physical signs, overall demeanour, past medical, social and family history, etc. They also need to know how to ask the right questions in order to encourage difficult patients to be forthcoming with this information. Then there's the issue of being a social as well as a scientific support to many patients and their families, not to mention breaking bad news to a family.

They need intrapersonal intelligence for being able to cope with the suffering and sometimes loss of a patient.

They need excellent judgement in order to be able to make the right decisions on often flimsy information.

They need to be adaptable, as all patients are different, particularly those with disabilities who may not be able to converse with the doctor in the way most people do, to read or write, to hear or even to understand (stroke patients for example).

Any doctor performing a physical examination, and surgeons in particular, need to have good bodily kinesthetic intelligence so they don't end up cutting the wrong thing or inserting a needle in the wrong place. Have you ever cut up a human body Ernie? Believe me, there's a lot of stuff in there, it's very messy and it's not all nicely coloured in like in the textbooks.

Ernie, you seem like an intelligent guy, and very opinionated, which I respect. But please don't make ridiculous statements on things you obviously know nothing about.

Now, rant over, back on topic I haven't had a chance to look at the interview yet, will do shortly. Generally speaking, it's very easy to bash Hugh Brady, heck I've done it plenty of times myself. But to me he's like Mary Harney - you may not agree with his vision, but at least he has one. He's not the first to call for the reintroduction of college fees. And while what he's calling for may be unpalatable, it's badly needed, as evidenced by the year on year increase in the 'registration fee.' If we didn't have so many foreign students paying extortionate rates we'd be up a very brown-coloured creek by now.

Shazbot

Ernie Ball wrote: »

No, it doesn't.

Sigh, yes it does to think otherwise is just plain ignorant, or possibly trolling in this situation (after all, statements like that are only issued to pick and arguement) . Have you ever worked in a hospital or seen the strain doctors are under to make quick decisions based on their knowledge? (excluding T.V shows) Infact what degree are you doing? Surely it can't be anything in the scientrific end to come out with statements like the below.

Maybe you should try 'opening the link' and see where it gets you.

Publications in the sciences are a dime a dozen: they are almost always co-written with colleagues (with underlings doing the real work). They rarely involve thought of any kind and usually deal with questions that are microscopic in scope. It is perfectly possible to have dozens and even hundreds of publications in the sciences and still be a relatively benighted person.

I use pubmed every day, i know how it works. Publications are a dime a dozen in certain journals. Brady has published in many journals where it's quality that get you into them. Of course the papers are co-written, pretty impossible to write one by yourself without spending years on it. Rarely involve any thought? Now you're being ridiculous. You must first look at the smaller picture before painting the bigger picture. True, you can get the PHD students and the post docs to do the grunt work, but he has to come up the idea and the methods. Takes more than a stupid person to that right?

Sure. It's a place where, for staff, the only thing that matters is the quantity of publications, not their quality. Small wonder such a system was implemented by a man with one hundred publications (wow!). Who cares whether they say anything of any profundity: a paper is the same as any other.

Of course, I wouldn't expect people who think all opinions are equivalent to have an understanding of this.

Do you really believe most researchers are sitting at their desks thinking "I'll write a crap paper just to earn Hugh some more money." I'm afraid they don't. Everyone wants to make a hugh discovery, it's just not easy. You obviously have no understanding of the work that goes on during research so don't dismiss his work as simpley quantity over quality.

And no, a paper is not the same as any other. To believe that would make you the stupid one. Can hardly compare a nobel prize winning series of papers to a paper recently published by a PHD student now can you.

Ernie Ball

Breezer wrote: »

Ernie, quite frankly that's insulting, as well as plain ignorant. For many many years before it was considered a science, medicine was considered an art.

Doctors not only have to have a huge amount of stored knowledge, but fantastic interpersonal intelligence for forming relationships with patients and their families, for being able to not only diagnose but order the right investigations based on a combination of what a patient tells you, what they don't tell you, what their family tells you, what their family doesn't tell you, physical signs, overall demeanour, past medical, social and family history, etc. They also need to know how to ask the right questions in order to encourage difficult patients to be forthcoming with this information. Then there's the issue of being a social as well as a scientific support to many patients and their families, not to mention breaking bad news to a family.

That is all true but only of good doctors. One needn't have any of that at all to be a qualified doctor. Who here hasn't been to a consultant with multiple letters after his name who has the interpersonal skills of a vampire?

Breezer

Ernie Ball wrote: »

That is all true but only of good doctors. One needn't have any of that at all to be a qualified doctor. Who here hasn't been to a consultant with multiple letters after his name who has the interpersonal skills of a vampire?

Oh of course I have, but the same logic could be applied to any discipline. You can hardly brand an entire discipline as not requiring thought because certain individuals within that discipline are bad at their jobs. The very fact that you can recognise these people as being bad at their jobs shows that the discipline requires thought, otherwise it would merely be par for the course.

Anyway, my post was somewhat off-topic (apologies to the mods), Ernie seems to be broadly in agreement with me on the point I made, and as I've yet to watch this video I'll withdraw from the discussion until I do.

Ernie Ball

Shazbot wrote: »

Sigh, yes it does to think otherwise is just plain ignorant, or possibly trolling in this situation (after all, statements like that are only issued to pick and arguement) . Have you ever worked in a hospital or seen the strain doctors are under to make quick decisions based on their knowledge? (excluding T.V shows) Infact what degree are you doing? Surely it can't be anything in the scientrific end to come out with statements like the below.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying there are no intelligent and even brilliant doctors. There undoubtedly are. But the mere fact of having a qualification in Medicine, even combined with a PhD, doesn't mean that one is therefore brilliant or intelligent. It is perfectly possible to do all that and still have a limited view of the world and an inability to see things with any depth or breadth.

I use pubmed every day, i know how it works. Publications are a dime a dozen in certain journals. Brady has published in many journals where it's quality that get you into them. Of course the papers are co-written, pretty impossible to write one by yourself without spending years on it.

Which is what staff in the humanities routinely do. . . But I digress.

Rarely involve any thought? Now you're being ridiculous. You must first look at the smaller picture before painting the bigger picture. True, you can get the PHD students and the post docs to do the grunt work, but he has to come up the idea and the methods. Takes more than a stupid person to that right?

Not necessarily. Sure, they have to have a certain sort of means-ends or instrumental intelligence. But that's all they have to have, and that's not really demanding very much.

Do you really believe most researchers are sitting at their desks thinking "I'll write a crap paper just to earn Hugh some more money." I'm afraid they don't.

I'm talking about the system Brady has implemented where all of the incentives (for promotion and other rewards) are entirely based on quantity. Of course no self-respecting researcher will allow this to corrupt them. But such a regime is, nevertheless, essentially corrupting of the university's mission.

And no, a paper is not the same as any other. To believe that would make you the stupid one.

You're confusing me with Brady here. I'm not the one who put in place a system where, in order to be promoted to Senior Lecturer, say, you have to have X number of publications with little attention paid to what those publications actually have to say. Brady did that, so I guess that "makes him the stupid one." Which is what I've been maintaining all along. QED.

Shazbot

Ernie Ball wrote: »

That is all true but only of good doctors. One needn't have any of that at all to be a qualified doctor. Who here hasn't been to a consultant with multiple letters after his name who has the interpersonal skills of a vampire?

So what you're getting at is that Brady is a bad doctor right. Have you get visited him or been treated by him. I doubt it, so stop trying to discredit the man, it's down right pathetic. I'll await your MD and PHD gradutation followed by the research and dedication to the education system as brady before I will listen to your nonsensical ramblings.

Ernie Ball

Breezer wrote: »

Oh of course I have, but the same logic could be applied to any discipline. You can hardly brand an entire discipline as not requiring thought because certain individuals within that discipline are bad at their jobs.

That's all I need. This argument started when it was adduced as evidence of Brady's intelligence that he has degrees in Medicine. I made the point that that proves nothing. This is not a slight on Medicine. It's just a claim that having advanced degrees isn't enough to make one intelligent.

Ernie Ball

Shazbot wrote: »

So what you're getting at is that Brady is a bad doctor right. Have you get visited him or been treated by him. I doubt it, so stop trying to discredit the man, it's down right pathetic. I'll await your MD and PHD gradutation followed by the research and dedication to the education system as brady before I will listen to your nonsensical ramblings.

1) What makes you think I don't already have an MD or a PhD?

2) You've made a fundamental logical error about the point of all this. I'm merely trying to shoot down the (feeble) argument advanced here that "Brady can't be lacking in intelligence since he has degrees in medicine."

3) I'm not saying he's a bad doctor. I'm saying he's a terrible President and that, a President with more foresight and experience wouldn't have made the blunders he's made.