Universities Jump in world Rankings

[patslatt]

There is a HUGE amount of money wasted in our universities. Junkets, waste of money on inappropriate assets, empire building etc.. And a work ethic that would make our laziest politicians look like workaholics. Take a stroll through a University in July or August and marvel at the fact that thousands of people are being paid while nothing happens.

We need to make sure that the right people are insulated from cuts.

Universities the world over enjoy long summer holidays. Oxford's attendance is only six months of the year,the idea being that students are supposed to be self motivated and to follow their own intellectual interests. This works well for the best students. American Ivy League universities are prescriptive and help students with editing,writing and researching term papers and reports. What enables this is the assistance of the large number of PhD students engaged in typically prolonged US PhD programmes.

[patslatt]

The Irish Times (in an article entitled "College Rankings Place UCD in Top 100") attributes the jump to Hugh Brady's "pro-business and modernizing agenda" which has had "a huge influence across the sector".

The nonsensical obsession with "rankings" and "listening to business" which has infected so much of our daily discourse will destroy what used to be called education. Putting business whizz-kids in charge of universities will turn them into neither good businesses nor proper universities. The entire focus has of course shifted away from the Humanities or any independent thought-system which might be at risk of interrogating the "listening to business" orthodoxies of our new market-led "world-class universities". Arts students are herded into huge undifferentiated lectures, with a labyrinthine "elective" and "option" system to keep them scurrying about aimlessly, and dipping superficially into 6 week taster classes, all in the name of "choice".

Heads of Faculties (or "Schools", as I think our Yankified Hugh now calls them) must stop being boring academics , get with the "pro-business" programme, draw large salaries, and START FUNDRAISING.
Although how research on, say, GM crops, which is being funded by, say, Montsanto, can be anything other than a worrying development for education escapes me .
Our corporate masters, not content with bringing the world economy to its knees, want to own and delimit the very processes by which we seek out and define knowledge and question received truths.

We all want to attract jobs. But universities must tread a careful path between their original academic remit and the needs of the corporate state, which, of course, seeks to drive all before it. Dr Brady is excited about UCD's ranking because such rankings "are cited as one of the top ten reasons why multinational companies choose a region in which to invest" .
Indeed. Who pays the piper calls the tune.

Fundraising is important to fund academic programmes,is it not?

University research in collaboration with industry generates useful activity.Of course, it could distort the research activities of universities if they allowed it to sideline their own key programmes,but that is their choice.

Most top American universities benefit from research collaboration with business,the military and the space programme. Military research if often at the forefront of high tech,witness the invention of night vision goggles and remote controlled drones,state of the art encryption for field communications etc

Has anything changed with Arts,which always struggled with overcrowded lecture halls? A lecturer of my acquaintance who did her PhD in a top US university began lecturing here to about 200 students per lecture. That did not allow her time to provide individual asistance to students. In a US Ivy League university,she would be assisted by PhD students who are relatively numerous there due to very prolonged PhD programmes. They would assist students with researching and editing reports.

I suggested that she should encourage her students to become self reliant by providing them with a reading list of books on how to write well and how to research term papers and reports.

[Gimpanzee]

Several european countries carry out research in state funded research institutions which are not universities. The Max Planck institution in Germany is top notch for physics, for example. These institutions are not put on this list.

I was going to make this point yesterday and the Max Planck was the one in my mind. Or countries where they have a system of permanent state-employed researchers like France.

[Mar Tweedy]

Ticking boxes in some MBA-speak list of targets and outcomes does not necessarily mean its a great university. Much university management policy is geared towards getting into these lists which as has been pointed out heavily lean towards countries who speak english or have strong facilities for english language speaking in their universities.

Its like the list of feeder schools. You need to know much more about a school than its place in a feeder school list which might just indicate that parents of pupils in the school can afford lots of grinds and extra help.

I'd be interested in knowing, for example, is a university's accessibility assessed for these lists - the socio-economic background of students, the number of students with disabilities etc etc. They are publicly funded so should be representative of that public.

[Gimpanzee]

I think you'll find that alot of activity happens in the summer months

Research
Recruitment for the upcoming academic year is finalised in August
CAO intakes are managed
Student registration is prepared,
Lecture timetabling
Lecture planning
Student accomodation planning
System upgrades
Graduations
etc


You may be generalising a wee bit...

Would you get a way with that nonsense. You sound like a county councillor trying to justify your expenses. Fair enough Admin have stuff to do, but the academic staff do bugger all. And admin in the Universities is like a local authority job in nicer surroundings.

Lecture planning?
Lecture TIMETABLING?

Mmmmuhahahahha.

[greenwithirony]

Fair points Gimpanzee & seabhcan.

I think gatsbygirl raises some excellent points. I've posted elsewhere about how US scientists have complained (anonymously, out of fear) about how the biotech industry has been interfering with research in the States:

Crop Scientists Say Biotechnology Seed Companies Are Thwarting Research
By ANDREW POLLACK
February 20, 2009
The New York Times

[patslatt]

[quote=greenwithirony;2177334][quote=Sam Lord;2176907]

This list is a measure of how universities attract foreign students, not how good the universities are.

But this list is not really representative of just how skewed the Times list is. I mean, 4 of the top 10, 7 of the top 30 are in the UK. The highest ranked French one is 28, the highest ranked German uni is 55!!! Looking at the Times list would make one wonder, surely, how these countries could hold a candle to the UK economically, technologically, or culturally?!?!

Ludicrous.

Maybe the rankings are distorted by overweighting of peer reviewed research in academic journals? In US universities,for a generation now the rule has been "publish or perish",so not surprisingly there is a whole army of academics whose jobs depend on their output of research studies. Many of them regard lecturing as a secondary activity and some scoff at lecturers. This downgrading of lecturing must adversely affect the quality of the students' educational experience.

Many US universities outside the Ivy Leagues and the very best state universities have low standards in arts and humanities. I read about one Ivy League where virtually none of the students bothered to read the prescribed literature in English,relying on course notes for information.

[odie1kanobe]

Has anything changed with Arts,which always struggled with overcrowded lecture halls? A lecturer of my acquaintance who did her PhD in a top US university began lecturing here to about 200 students per lecture. That did not allow her time to provide individual asistance to students. In a US Ivy League university,she would be assisted by PhD students who are relatively numerous there due to very prolonged PhD programmes. They would assist students with researching and editing reports.

I suggested that she should encourage her students to become self reliant by providing them with a reading list of books on how to write well and how to research term papers and reports.

And what real benefit is investing in Arts going to bring to the Economy long term.

Stuff Arts and let them pay for it if they want to do the course and invest in Engineering / Sciences / Business / Medical education.

[greenwithirony]

[quote=patslatt;2179376][quote=greenwithirony;2177334]

Maybe the rankings are distorted by overweighting of peer reviewed research in academic journals? In US universities,for a generation now the rule has been "publish or perish",so not surprisingly there is a whole army of academics whose jobs depend on their output of research studies. Many of them regard lecturing as a secondary activity and some scoff at lecturers. This downgrading of lecturing must adversely affect the quality of the students' educational experience.

Many US universities outside the Ivy Leagues and the very best state universities have low standards in arts and humanities. I read about one Ivy League where virtually none of the students bothered to read the prescribed literature in English,relying on course notes for information.

Interesting post, you could well be right. As a corollary, do you think it might be fair to say that resources are concentrated in relatively few select universities in the UK & US, whereas in other countries perhaps the resources are more widely & evenly spread across higher educational establishments? Just a thought mind.

[greenwithirony]

Bloody hell, off topic here but what am I doing wrong quoting people? If there are multiple quotes within a post do I need to select the multi-quote option or what??? I've been selecting Quote & it's making a mess of every post!