Waterford University discussion

Harry Palmr

Just caught the end of Willie Donnelly from a questioning featured on WLRfm news heads, any idea what it's about?

south

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Just caught the end of Willie Donnelly from a questioning featured on WLRfm news heads, any idea what it's about?

The sale of FeedHenry I would think.

imacman

http://www.munster-express.ie/business/focus-on-securing-tu-hq-undisputed/
The TU headquarters needs to be in Waterford and the president of the TU needs to be an independent outsider for the project to have any chance of success.

7upfree

imacman wrote: »

http://www.munster-express.ie/business/focus-on-securing-tu-hq-undisputed/
The TU headquarters needs to be in Waterford and the president of the TU needs to be an independent outsider for the project to have any chance of success.

Going on past skullduggery, it won't.

imacman

Some more of the steering committee minutes are up on the TUSE.ie site.
https://www.tuse.ie/project/steering-group-minutes/
Not much in them really but interesting in the light of this in the media today
https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/02/13/83315/#

invara

It is great that WIT has held out this long. All we need is a hop of a political ball and the strategic knot we have been tied up in might be broken. With Cork and Tralee hitched, if they progress to TU it creates the space for Waterford to progress on its own. When WIT was separated from the RTC herd and upgraded in 1997, it was the stink that Cork made that led to all RTCs being renamed (by Micheál Martin) destroying the impact on WIT. With Cork now a different type of institution, if WIT can hold on a bit longer it might do much better in a new political environment.

There is no money on the table for this merger and university, so it is a sick joke; sicker given the Minister's commitment to consent, the €1bn campus that DIT got for its TU and the total and utter absence of investment in higher education in the SE since 2007.

invara

22 February, 2019 - Minister McHugh to visit Limerick to turn the sod on €11.57million investment under Project Ireland 2040 at LIT Coonagh
Today's PR https://www.education.ie/en/Press-Events/Press-Releases/2019-press-releases/PR19-02-22.html

This is what a Minister can do for a region. This project was only capital investment in by the Dept. of Ed in the Institute of Technology sector in almost a decade, made by Minister Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick TD). As an aside nothing to do with Ireland 2040.

2014 Announcement: https://www.limerickpost.ie/2014/10/16/ul-and-lit-to-benefit-from-e25-million-capital-fund/

The €10m of the €25m fund into Limerick IT, is now about €17m into the new Coonagh Campus. No TU bull****, no merger.... just money.

Not quite as bad as Joan Burton's (former DIT lecturer) delivering the €1bn Grangegorman campus and forcing the FG to roll back on the commitment to a new university in Carriganore.

Irish cabinet is about being there, not being fair.

Muttley79

https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/02/22/rise-of-the-machines-threatens-40-of-jobs-in-ireland/
Slightly off topic,5 of the 10 towns listed I see are from the south east region.the main reason for this is we don't have a university in the south east region

robtri

Muttley79 wrote: »

https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/02/22/rise-of-the-machines-threatens-40-of-jobs-in-ireland/
Slightly off topic,5 of the 10 towns listed I see are from the south east region.the main reason for this is we don't have a university in the south east region

where do you get the main reason is we don't have a university???
your just making that up

Harry Palmr

imacman wrote: »

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-tralee-overstaffed-and-has-significant-money-issues-report-1.3767234
The wheels have started to come off the MTU bid now as well.CIT wont be happy with taking on an huge deficit from Tralee which seems to be an unsustainable institute. Their plan to break even entails increasing students by 20% over the next couple of years , thats impossible with UL and LIT up the road the the school leaver demographics declining in the region.Why should CIT take on that debt and overstaffing with no extra funding promised by the government for the TUs .Is the TU "emperor with no clothes" going to be finally exposed in 2019.

Just reading up on this again today

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-tralee-overstaffed-lossmaking-and-facing-cashflow-difficulties-1.3894988

As above it appears that Cork are in no mood to shoulder ITT's debt burden and it seems rather remiss to have allowed Tralee such a luxurious sporting campus as it's only going to exacerbate their loss making. Shouldn't someone have said stop?

For example, the institute experienced a sharp decline in full-time student numbers, which fell by more than 15 per cent between 2014/2015 and 2017/2018.

Staffing numbers, however, have remained the same and it now appears to be overstaffed relative to its overall student numbers.

The €19 million Kerry Sports Academy has also been beset by a lack of certainty over funding, leaving the institute faced with trying to find millions from its own reserves which have been depleted for a number of years/


/There are now real concerns in some quarters that financial woes and internal tensions could scupper or delay plans to establish country’s newest university. Much of this, however, will hinge on what international experts make of the situation when they visit next week.

imacman

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Just reading up on this again today

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-tralee-overstaffed-lossmaking-and-facing-cashflow-difficulties-1.3894988

As above it appears that Cork are in no mood to shoulder ITT's debt burden and it seems rather remiss to have allowed Tralee such a luxurious sporting campus as it's only going to exacerbate their loss making. Shouldn't someone have said stop?

Yea its crazy and the IT Tralee plan to get out of their problems is a fantasy, they say they are going to increase their student body by 20% by 2022 when the market is only going to grow by 7% in the period.

Also they have the international panel in to review their merger this week , if this was a independent panel taking the merger on its merits it wouldn't have a snowballs chance in hell of approving it. Unfortunately this panel is just a token gesture to allow government rubber stamp of the merger which will be forced through now matter how dysfunctional is it or how shambolic Tralee is.I feel sorry for Cork who are having to inherit this mess.
Also its another indication of how stupid this whole merger/TU process is and our own Carlow merger is another flawed process although is seems to have stalled as the the Unions are putting up a good fight against it

invara

Today's Irish Times very interesting for TUSE watchers.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/cork-it-and-it-tralee-row-over-senior-roles-in-joint-university-1.3897590

The figment of a merger of equals with no fresh resources unleashes a eat or be eaten logics...... that will not serve the people of the SE. I would bet on Waterford eating Carlow resources in that mix, after a brutal few years of total war. WIT have more depth in management, is far more complex with significant research, postgraduate, a broader set of schools and the institutional capacity to become a university.... Carlow has a small management team from the command and control school of management which works at secondary, but not at third level. Certainly, I think WIT management could manage Carlow, but we know Carlow management cannot run WIT.

imacman

invara wrote: »

Today's Irish Times very interesting for TUSE watchers.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/cork-it-and-it-tralee-row-over-senior-roles-in-joint-university-1.3897590

The figment of a merger of equals with no fresh resources unleashes a eat or be eaten logics...... that will not serve the people of the SE. I would bet on Waterford eating Carlow resources in that mix, after a brutal few years of total war. WIT have more depth in management, is far more complex with significant research, postgraduate, a broader set of schools and the institutional capacity to become a university.... Carlow has a small management team from the command and control school of management which works at secondary, but not at third level. Certainly, I think WIT management could manage Carlow, but we know Carlow management cannot run WIT.

Absolutely the Carlow management structure is an out dated micromanagement approach where all of the power resides with a handful of individuals. I have talked to some of the staff up there and its amazing how little staff are trusted with budgets and decisions making in their depts all controlled from the top.For example if you are going off campus for a meeting you have to get it approved by the presidents office, seems very toxic to me.

Teebor15

Team for Limerick

Nolan
Lyons Prunty Connors
Tadgh Austin Philip
Barron Prendergast
Maurice Pauric Moran
Ryan Brick Stephen

Dunmoreroader

Teebor15 wrote: »

Team for Limerick

Nolan
Lyons Prunty Connors
Tadgh Austin Philip
Barron Prendergast
Maurice Pauric Moran
Ryan Brick Stephen

Did you get lost?:pac:

imacman

Is the MTU merger going down the tubes , not looking good for them
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/munster-technological-university-bid-suffers-blow-as-staff-reject-latest-plans-1.3900458
Be interesting to see what affect this has on the TUSEI , the flaws of the whole TU process are starting to shine through . Shows how little thought was put into the whole idea of IoT mergers

friendlyfun

Can't see a university for SE region for years imo sadly. There's disagreements on where the headquarters will be. The Munster TU also sets to be the next University. Hoping for a breakthrough.

A region with 500,000 people and not a single university is shamfeful

imacman

friendlyfun wrote: »

Can't see a university for SE region for years imo sadly. There's disagreements on where the headquarters will be. The Munster TU also sets to be the next University. Hoping for a breakthrough.

A region with 500,000 people and not a single university is shamfeful

Did you read the post above, I wouldn't hold your breath on the MTU . The southeast needs a university but not a underfunded yellow pack university which we will get with this merged TU.

imacman

The TU troubles go on and WIT arent the bad guys for once
https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/06/21/93928/

Deiseen

imacman wrote: »

The TU troubles go on and WIT arent the bad guys for once
https://www.wlrfm.com/2019/06/21/93928/

Im assuming this was (rightly) outlining WIT as the main campus? Would explain the high approval in WIT and low in Carlow.

If not what parts did they object to do you know?

imacman

Im not sure of the details but I heard that the agreement pretty much kept the status quo. The problem for the Carlow guys is that WIT lecturers have much better terms of employment and they want to get similar treatment which seems fair enough to me .

curmudgeonly

imacman wrote: »

Im not sure of the details but I heard that the agreement pretty much kept the status quo. The problem for the Carlow guys is that WIT lecturers have much better terms of employment and they want to get similar treatment which seems fair enough to me .

The fact that WIT is semesterised and Carlow is not must be a big stumbling block for Lecturers I would imagine?

imacman

curmudgeonly wrote: »

The fact that WIT is semesterised and Carlow is not must be a big stumbling block for Lecturers I would imagine?

Yea that must a factor also I heard there are lots of other things like course leader payments , staff in Waterford get extra pay for being a course leader but they dont in Carlow . Looks like the big expansion in Carlow over the last 10 years was funded by paying their staff a lot less to than the other ITs. That may be coming back to bite them

Muttley79

Carlow can f*** off,Waterford should just demand to go it alone now and get university status,with the airport reopening we should be also aiming for over seas students to come to Waterford

imacman

Muttley79 wrote: »

Carlow can f*** off,Waterford should just demand to go it alone now and get university status,with the airport reopening we should be also aiming for over seas students to come to Waterford

Much as I would love to see WIT go it alone, its just not politically possible ( unless the is a political earthquake and Sinn Fein get into government and David Cullinane becomes Minister for Education )

Interesting to see the MTU looks in real trouble and may actually be dead.With the Carlow union rejection of the MOU and the general bad blood and the has existed between WIT and ITCarlow I wonder is their an appetite for an WIT- CIT merger.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/major-setback-for-plan-to-create-munster-technological-university-1.3935002

vriesmays

https://www.rte.ie/archives/collections/news/21210835-waterford-chamber-wants-university/

Bards

imacman wrote: »

Muttley79 wrote: »

Carlow can f*** off,Waterford should just demand to go it alone now and get university status,with the airport reopening we should be also aiming for over seas students to come to Waterford

Much as I would love to see WIT go it alone, its just not politically possible ( unless the is a political earthquake and Sinn Fein get into government and David Cullinane becomes Minister for Education )

Interesting to see the MTU looks in real trouble and may actually be dead.With the Carlow union rejection of the MOU and the general bad blood and the has existed between WIT and ITCarlow I wonder is their an appetite for an WIT- CIT merger.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/major-setback-for-plan-to-create-munster-technological-university-1.3935002

No way would I welcome a CIT WIT University merger... CIT would grab all the good courses as they have the political might and WIT would only be a shadow of its former self aka UHW as opposed to WRH

imacman

Bards wrote: »

No way would I welcome a CIT WIT University merger... CIT would grab all the good courses as they have the political might and WIT would only be a shadow of its former self aka UHW as opposed to WRH

yea that may be the case , it will be interesting to see where this goes in Munster.The government will probably rubber stamp the merger no matter how what the panel says as this is a purely political process, but if the project is rejected I wonder would the political might in Cork would push to allow CorkIT became a TU on its own .
With similar calls coming from Dundalk and Athlone this whole process may be blown open especially if we change government next spring and Fianna Fáil get in .With Carlow IT staff rejecting the MOU the WIT /Carlow merger has been pushed down the road again which might not be a bad thing

Dunmoreroader

imacman wrote: »

yea that may be the case , it will be interesting to see where this goes in Munster.The government will probably rubber stamp the merger no matter how what the panel says as this is a purely political process, but if the project is rejected I wonder would the political might in Cork would push to allow CorkIT became a TU on its own .
With similar calls coming from Dundalk and Athlone this whole process may be blown open especially if we change government next spring and Fianna Fáil get in .With Carlow IT staff rejecting the MOU the WIT /Carlow merger has been pushed down the road again which might not be a bad thing

Agreed. Of course the development of existing and new University's should be integrated into and framed by the Ireland 2040 National Planning Framework. In such a scenario, logic would dictate that a University for Waterford be No.1 priority as the only one of the designated cities for growth currently without one.
CIT, Carlow, Dundalk, Athlone, Sligo, Tralee might all have their case but none comes even close to the one for a University in Waterford.

JaCrispy

Dunmoreroader wrote: »

.... none comes even close to the one for a University in Waterford.

On what basis?