Speech by Dr Michael P. Mortell
President, University College, Cork
at the Conferring of Degrees & Diplomas in the Faculty of Science
Tuesday, 21 July 1998 at 10.00 a.m.
 
The Changing Role of Universities

I would like to say a few words this morning about Universities and the general context in which they work today, as we come to the end of the 20th Century. Universities are among the oldest and most durable institutions in the world. Over the 900 years of their existence they have survived kings, tyrants, plagues - and democracy.

During all that time, and up to relatively recently, universities were small institutions which catered for a small proportion of the general population - what we now call ‘elite’ institutions. As recently as forty years ago, less than 5% of the 18-year olds in this country went on to a university education. Today, about 45% go on to some form of third level education: UCC itself has increased from about 1,000 students to 11,000 students over this time. Universities are now very visible in terms of their size. In terms of their cost to the State they have become a major item of expenditure - £265 million in 1997. Universities are now clearly much more in the public eye - victims of their own success. As the concept of universal third level education spreads, and as the role of universities in the social and economic development of a country becomes more apparent, greater and greater demands are made by society at large on universities through its various agencies.

There was a time when universities simply taught students - that, for example, was the sole function of the great universities, Oxford, Cambridge, Paris, in their early years. Then about 150 years ago, universities began to become centres for research. Research is now a defining characteristic of a university.

Today, universities have been given many tasks other than teaching and research, which have been their core remit for over a century. To illustrate this let me quote from the Universities Act 1997 where the objects of a university in Ireland are laid out:

• to advance knowledge through teaching, scholarly research and scientific investigation;
• to promote learning in its student body and in society generally;

So far this is what we might expect - except possibly for the promotion of learning in society generally. What obligation does that put on the university, how do we meet it, what are the means given to us to fulfil our legal obligation?

Then we have

• to support and contribute to the realisation of national economic and social development.

This specific statement is new. The university now is given an explicit role in contributing to economic and social development. The university is expected to join with various agencies of the state, e.g., the IDA, or social agencies, to bring about economic change and social change in our society.

Does this have any implication for the type and mix of course we put on, and the type of education we give our students?

We are expected under the legislation

• to educate, train and retrain higher level professional, technical and managerial personnel,
• to facilitate lifelong learning through the provision of adult and continuing education.

This changes the whole context of university teaching. We are now given the open-ended task of continuing lifelong upskilling and education, and at the same time meet the increasing labour force demands for highly specialised skills, e.g., we note the recent "Skills Initiative" where all the Universities are attempting to nearly double numbers in the software area.

Again how are we to fulfil these obligations? The Irish university system is already among the most efficient in the OECD in terms of cost per graduate. How are we to take on a whole new set of obligations and maintain the quality of what we do without specific funding for these new obligations?

Finally we have

• to promote gender balance and equality of opportunity among students and employees of the university.

This demands, and creates an expectation, that universities become engines of social change, when very often the root causes of social inequality are far removed from the daily workings of a university.

Let me emphasise that each one of the objectives as laid out is good in itself. We have no argument there.

The problem arises when the university has to take on these extra tasks in a context of a continuing knowledge explosion which is outrunning the capacity of any university to cope with it, and in the context of a continuous squeeze by Government on unit costs with increasing demands for such as quality assurance, transparency and other management instruments.

There is now a huge demand overload on universities. Universities are hoisted by their own success, and they are caught in a "cross-fire of expectations" which they are in my view, incapable of meeting.

Universities are out of balance with the society in which they live. They are incapable of meeting the many and diverse demands of society, as enunciated by theius government, within the constraints of the resources which that society makes available to them. There is today a sense of turmoil in all university systems in the western world - of demands being made which cannot be met. The challenge for each university is to manage that turmoil on a step-by-step basis, and to rethink how the university should reorganise itself to deal with a continuing unsteady development when there is no ultimate should reorganise itself to deal with a continuing unsteady development when there is no ultimate solution in sight.

In the coming years the university which will succeed is the university which goes back to its core strengths - its dedicated and highly qualified staff, its deep discipline base, its fundamental values of scholarship - and reorganises these in an imaginative, flexible and entrepreneurial way. This will not be a once-off exercise, but a continuous addressing of problems and making of adjustments from inside the university to an ever-changing external environment.