2008 Press Releases
Conferring Ceremonies at University College Cork - September 12th 2008
12.09.2008
Conferring ceremonies concluded today (September 12th 2008) at University College Cork with 412 undergraduate and postgraduate students graduating from the College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences.
12.09.2008
Conferring ceremonies concluded today (September 12th 2008) at University College Cork with 412 undergraduate and postgraduate students graduating from the College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences.
The Conferring Addresses were delivered by Dr Maurice Bric, Chairman, Foresight (attached).
____________________
Conferring Address by Dr Maurice Bric, Chairman, Foresight, Friday, September 12th 2008
President, Members of Faculty, Graduates, Parents and, one and all, Friends of University College, Cork:
I want to thank you for your welcome and in particular, if I may, to thank the President for his generous introduction.
I also wish to congratulate our new graduates on your achievements and for overcoming the many challenges which you have faced along the way here. But in doing so, you have also displayed that sense of personality and perseverance which have always distinguished the graduates of this great university.
The Student Experience
Since you came here to UCC, whether or not you have combined your student life with living at home, you have been challenged
Some of the older generation here have also benefited from this influential experience. For us (for I am of that generation), it is always worth remembering what College has meant at that formative time in our lives and how it has shaped us, sometimes in very decisive ways.
Earlier this morning, as I walked up from the main gate on the Western Road,
Maybe this is nostalgia some thirty years after the fact. But it is also a matter of fact that this is the place which gave me the skills as well as the freedom to progress my interests, and to develop those interests into a career.
However, College has also had a wider formative influence on those of us who have spent some time here. In all kinds of decisive ways, whether we realise it or not, UCC has been a "mentor" which has influenced us far beyond the Seminar or the Lecture.
We sometimes tend to forget this wider influence which the university has had on our lives.
As a result, we can miss something when we are asked to place the university in the order of things. This can also explain
The Importance of the Humanities and Social Sciences
In this context, the Humanities and Social Sciences are often seen, at best, as a kind of Cinderella and at worst, as something to which we pay lip service. Recently, I heard a distinguished scientist even describe them as a luxury which the nation cannot afford.
Such comments reflect an unrealistic view of the "idea of the university" as well as a poor understanding of why in the present, no less than in the past, our reputation for higher learning is acknowledged the world over.
In charity, I will suggest that the comment may have been made in frustration rather than as an article of faith. However, it is naive and ill-informed.
In terms of the high number of students who are accepted for courses within our universities, Humanities and Social Sciences departments more than hold their own. Indeed, they are key to the survival of our universities and bring in more than their share of university income and students. Still, they are often viewed as a kind of afterthought which in the so-called "real world" have little to contribute.
As I mentioned earlier, this is both a limiting and a limited view of what Higher Education in Ireland is all about. But it also challenges those of us who think about, and who know about, the potential of the Humanities and Social Sciences to underline not just the importance of what we do, but the fact that our universities simply cannot exist without us. It is up to us to argue our case within our university and our country, and to ensure that our universities will be all the richer for continuing to include the Humanities and Social Sciences within strategic priorities. We have the community of expertise. And that community has to be active.
In doing so, we can also stress the wider importance of our disciplines. Recently, the CEOs of some of Canada's leading high tech companies made the point that while Canada needed graduates in technology to fuel its digital economy,
it is impossible to operate an effective corporation in our new economy by employing technology graduates alone ...
A liberal arts and science education nurtures skills and talents [that are] increasingly valued by modern corporations. Our companies function in a state of constant flux. To prosper we need creative thinkers at all levels of the enterprise who are comfortable dealing with decisions in the bigger context ... In short they provide leadership.
Graduates, these reflections underline the wider importance of what you have done on your way here to-day.
I must admit that there is one part of me that cringes when I read such statements, if only because they argue that the Humanities and Social Sciences are best understood in a language over and beyond what I have been taught and speak within my own professional tent. But in a sense, the suggestion that the Humanities and Social Sciences have this flexibility is a unique strength. And it is our challenge to ensure that our policy makers appreciate this and should engage with it.
I am not suggesting that the Humanities and Social Sciences are intrinsically better or worse than the Sciences. Because for me, the central point is that the process of learning is diverse and that our third level policies, whether they are formulated by the University or by the State, should reflect that diversity and of course, be funded accordingly. So,
In any event, happiness is when Cinderella and the Prince are united after a long and tortuous story, or to use the language of current policy-making, after a long and tortuous "process". But, as you know, the point of the story was that it was all worth it in the end. And they all lived happily ever after because they "found" one another.
HSS and the Knowledge Economy
Having said all this, it is also true that in recent years, the role of the university has changed for the better.
Teaching
The ability of the university to do this runs along two strands. The first of these strands is quality teaching which for me, is the raison d'etre of any university. Nonetheless, in a time of "budgetary realignment", to use the official wording, teaching budgets are the first to be hit.
To an extent, such cutbacks are outside the competence of the university.
But what is not outside our control is an insistence that those who lead, or who want to lead, research projects should also justify how their projects can enhance the teaching mission of the university. It is of no small significance that in the great universities of the United States, the great are good, and the good are great, because they are often engaging teachers as well as imaginative researchers.
We should not put our teachers and researchers into what are often mutually exclusive boxes. Everybody in the university should teach. And I regret that in some cases, the designation of excellence in research is taken that there are certain people who "do not teach". This is undesirable.
Excellence in research should always find its way into the classroom.
Research
This brings me to Strand Two, and to the importance of research. Over the past ten years, I have had the privilege to be involved with the Research Council which in 1999 was set up by a distinguished graduate of UCC, Minister Micheál Martin. In the interim, it has evolved into a body which manages different schemes which provide significant financial support and scientific advice. It also provides a bridge for researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), be they post-graduates or professionals, to network with colleagues in Europe and by doing so, to realise, not just their own potential, but how this can be complemented by others.
As with the internal culture of the university and as the Irish proverb puts it, is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine: We live in one another's shadows.
I appreciate how important our awards are to Faculty and I salute those who have been successful. That these awards are managed through a process of international peer review also celebrates the fact that your creativity and excellence have been benchmarked to international standards. As with other aspects of our HSS culture, to which I have referred, this process will continue to bring challenges for future competitions. But they are such as can only enhance the reputation of the university.
The University as a Community
____________________
Conferring Address by Dr Maurice Bric, Chairman, Foresight, Friday, September 12th 2008
President, Members of Faculty, Graduates, Parents and, one and all, Friends of University College, Cork:
I want to thank you for your welcome and in particular, if I may, to thank the President for his generous introduction.
I also wish to congratulate our new graduates on your achievements and for overcoming the many challenges which you have faced along the way here. But in doing so, you have also displayed that sense of personality and perseverance which have always distinguished the graduates of this great university.
The Student Experience
Since you came here to UCC, whether or not you have combined your student life with living at home, you have been challenged
- to manage your lives in new ways
- to reinvent relationships with family and childhood friends, and
- to meet new people in, among other places, the university's societies and sports clubs. The post-graduates among you have also done this through the various conferences and seminars which you have attended, and maybe on occasion, helped to organise.
Some of the older generation here have also benefited from this influential experience. For us (for I am of that generation), it is always worth remembering what College has meant at that formative time in our lives and how it has shaped us, sometimes in very decisive ways.
Earlier this morning, as I walked up from the main gate on the Western Road,
- I passed the Aula Maxima where my "student tribe" studied, especially as the exams loomed
- and as I came over here, the Boole Library disappeared because in my mind's eye, I remembered the dug-out in front of the Restaurant where I watched, but was rarely good enough, to play rugby and football.
- I also walked by the West Wing which was then home to the Dean of Arts, where I met some of best and enduring friends as I queued up to be interviewed by the "Great Man", as all First Year students had to do at the time.
Maybe this is nostalgia some thirty years after the fact. But it is also a matter of fact that this is the place which gave me the skills as well as the freedom to progress my interests, and to develop those interests into a career.
However, College has also had a wider formative influence on those of us who have spent some time here. In all kinds of decisive ways, whether we realise it or not, UCC has been a "mentor" which has influenced us far beyond the Seminar or the Lecture.
We sometimes tend to forget this wider influence which the university has had on our lives.
As a result, we can miss something when we are asked to place the university in the order of things. This can also explain
- why we can easily become obsessed by metrics, by inputs and outcomes, and by extension, by an increasingly overwhelming bureaucracy, and
- why we can marginalise aspects of university life which do not easily fall within these metrics.
The Importance of the Humanities and Social Sciences
In this context, the Humanities and Social Sciences are often seen, at best, as a kind of Cinderella and at worst, as something to which we pay lip service. Recently, I heard a distinguished scientist even describe them as a luxury which the nation cannot afford.
Such comments reflect an unrealistic view of the "idea of the university" as well as a poor understanding of why in the present, no less than in the past, our reputation for higher learning is acknowledged the world over.
In charity, I will suggest that the comment may have been made in frustration rather than as an article of faith. However, it is naive and ill-informed.
In terms of the high number of students who are accepted for courses within our universities, Humanities and Social Sciences departments more than hold their own. Indeed, they are key to the survival of our universities and bring in more than their share of university income and students. Still, they are often viewed as a kind of afterthought which in the so-called "real world" have little to contribute.
As I mentioned earlier, this is both a limiting and a limited view of what Higher Education in Ireland is all about. But it also challenges those of us who think about, and who know about, the potential of the Humanities and Social Sciences to underline not just the importance of what we do, but the fact that our universities simply cannot exist without us. It is up to us to argue our case within our university and our country, and to ensure that our universities will be all the richer for continuing to include the Humanities and Social Sciences within strategic priorities. We have the community of expertise. And that community has to be active.
In doing so, we can also stress the wider importance of our disciplines. Recently, the CEOs of some of Canada's leading high tech companies made the point that while Canada needed graduates in technology to fuel its digital economy,
it is impossible to operate an effective corporation in our new economy by employing technology graduates alone ...
A liberal arts and science education nurtures skills and talents [that are] increasingly valued by modern corporations. Our companies function in a state of constant flux. To prosper we need creative thinkers at all levels of the enterprise who are comfortable dealing with decisions in the bigger context ... In short they provide leadership.
Graduates, these reflections underline the wider importance of what you have done on your way here to-day.
I must admit that there is one part of me that cringes when I read such statements, if only because they argue that the Humanities and Social Sciences are best understood in a language over and beyond what I have been taught and speak within my own professional tent. But in a sense, the suggestion that the Humanities and Social Sciences have this flexibility is a unique strength. And it is our challenge to ensure that our policy makers appreciate this and should engage with it.
I am not suggesting that the Humanities and Social Sciences are intrinsically better or worse than the Sciences. Because for me, the central point is that the process of learning is diverse and that our third level policies, whether they are formulated by the University or by the State, should reflect that diversity and of course, be funded accordingly. So,
- having regard to the ways in which the Humanities and Social Sciences range over the widest world of learning, and
- having regard to their role as a kind of "mother-ship" to everything else, as they have always been since medieval times,
In any event, happiness is when Cinderella and the Prince are united after a long and tortuous story, or to use the language of current policy-making, after a long and tortuous "process". But, as you know, the point of the story was that it was all worth it in the end. And they all lived happily ever after because they "found" one another.
HSS and the Knowledge Economy
Having said all this, it is also true that in recent years, the role of the university has changed for the better.
- Until relatively recently, our trade missions abroad rarely included the university leaders who mentor and train the very people on whom the outcome of these missions depended. Now, our universities are central to the formation, as well as to the realisation of the Knowledge Society as well as the Knowledge Economy.
- Secondly, the worlds of "enterprise" and "education" are no longer at arm's length from one another. That stated, I might add that when I read published strategies on research, these two worlds can sometimes be seen to have different languages which in each case, suggest that they have the "better medicine" for the journey forward.
Teaching
The ability of the university to do this runs along two strands. The first of these strands is quality teaching which for me, is the raison d'etre of any university. Nonetheless, in a time of "budgetary realignment", to use the official wording, teaching budgets are the first to be hit.
To an extent, such cutbacks are outside the competence of the university.
But what is not outside our control is an insistence that those who lead, or who want to lead, research projects should also justify how their projects can enhance the teaching mission of the university. It is of no small significance that in the great universities of the United States, the great are good, and the good are great, because they are often engaging teachers as well as imaginative researchers.
We should not put our teachers and researchers into what are often mutually exclusive boxes. Everybody in the university should teach. And I regret that in some cases, the designation of excellence in research is taken that there are certain people who "do not teach". This is undesirable.
Excellence in research should always find its way into the classroom.
Research
This brings me to Strand Two, and to the importance of research. Over the past ten years, I have had the privilege to be involved with the Research Council which in 1999 was set up by a distinguished graduate of UCC, Minister Micheál Martin. In the interim, it has evolved into a body which manages different schemes which provide significant financial support and scientific advice. It also provides a bridge for researchers in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS), be they post-graduates or professionals, to network with colleagues in Europe and by doing so, to realise, not just their own potential, but how this can be complemented by others.
As with the internal culture of the university and as the Irish proverb puts it, is ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine: We live in one another's shadows.
I appreciate how important our awards are to Faculty and I salute those who have been successful. That these awards are managed through a process of international peer review also celebrates the fact that your creativity and excellence have been benchmarked to international standards. As with other aspects of our HSS culture, to which I have referred, this process will continue to bring challenges for future competitions. But they are such as can only enhance the reputation of the university.
The University as a Community
- As we look to the future, and as I look out at you, Graduates, as persons whose competence in the Humanities and Social Sciences we celebrate to-day, we have to stress
- the sense of the "connectedness" in what we do, both inside the university, and outside it, and in turn, between our university and our country
- the fact that our students benefit from the so-called Student Experience as well as from pursuing a degree
- that our professors, lecturers, and tutors "educate" as well as teach, and finally,
- that as our HSS researchers bring us to the cutting edge of our disciplines, we can help address some of the social and cultural issues of our country.
In doing this, our challenge is to underline these are not mutually exclusive slices of college life. Taken together, they are the very engine that keeps the whole thing going.
Conclusion
Never was it more true to say that where Finbarr taught, not only Munster, but Ireland and the International Community, can learn. And you, our graduates of 2008, are worthy ambassadors for this task over and beyond what it says on your parchments.
I ndeire na dála, a mhuintir rang dhá mhíle agus a hocht, guím rath agus sonas oraibh go léir sna blianta atá romhaibh amach. Tá súil agam go mbainfidh sibh sonas agus dubhshlán as bhur saol, agus tá súil agam go gcuimhneoidh sibh ó am go céile ar Choláiste na h-Ollscoile, Corcaigh agus gach a mbaineann leis.
Thank you
834MMcS