GMIT poised to unveil ambitious masterplan

The success of the woodwork centre at Letterfrack can be replicated in all sectors of Galway Mayo Institute of Technology (GMIT), according to the college’s new president.

Dr Fergal Barry, who became GMIT president in October, plans to create ‘centres of excellence’ like Letterfrack right across the organisation.

Dr Barry, who has 20 years of experience at Limerick IT, also plans to deepen GMIT’s relationship with NUIG; increase its research capability; and improve the college’s retention rates.

He proposes to unveil an ambitious ‘masterplan’ for capital investment centred at its Dublin Road campus, a plan which includes re-zoning land-banks at Galwegians rugby grounds at Glenina and at the former Corrib Great Southern Hotel.

Pursuing technological university status with ITs along the western seaboard, establishing a fundraising ‘friends of GMIT foundation’ based on the Alumni association at NUIG, and returning to offering apprenticeships are among Dr Barry’s other objectives.

“Letterfrack is really our star performer,” said Dr Barry.

“It is the national centre of excellence for furniture design and wood technology. It is known nationally and internationally. For our careers fair this year we had very senior executives from abroad flying in by helicopter recruiting from there. They are something to behold. That model of centre of excellence, I suppose one of my hopes and ambitions would be to cascade centres of excellence across the organisation,” he said.

Dr Barry was vice-president of research and development at LIT for years and he’ll use that experience in Galway. “Certainly the institution needs to enhance and improve and build upon its performance in the area of research. I was aware of that before I came here. And there is significant opportunity to do that.”

He agrees GMIT competes with NUIG for students but added: “I’d like to see significant more collaboration with NUIG, indeed I’ve started deepening that relationship with NUIG.”

He called it ‘co-opetition’, or the “the whole idea of collaborating yet at the same time competing,” and gives the example of the two third level institutes “coming together to market internationally”.

Dr Barry said expanding its city campus, and acquiring more lands near the Dublin Road is a priority.

“Chief amongst our priorities for capital development is a new STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) building. And then obviously student support services. The Institute has planning permission for a students services building across the road from us on the Dublin Road,” he said. This could be built in a public-private partnership, he said.

Dr Barry also revealed that GMIT is eyeing up Galwegians rugby grounds, and the former Corrib Great Southern Hotel.

“Any land in close proximity to a higher education institution is of more value to the higher education institution than anybody else. So, ideally, all lands in proximity to GMIT should be zoned educational. We have made a submission on the local development plan to Galway City Council, to that effect as well.”

He said that a masterplan will be unveiled to the Governing Body in March, and then publicly some time later. Lands around Murrough House are central to the plan, he said.

GMIT currently has 5,260 students, and that will grow to around 7,000 by 2028 but he’s not planning to go mad building.

“I think we need to proceed very prudently and very cautiously. Rather than having a very large campus footprint, we should maybe look to see how we can use our space more flexibly, including online learning.”

In the short-term, though, the objective is to stem drop-out rates. He says retention rates at GMIT are higher than the national average, but this is partly explained by the exceptionally high third level education participation rates in Galway and Mayo.

Financially, GMIT had a deficit of about €2 million last year, which consumed cash reserves. It is obliged to bring a balanced budget in 2016 and he plans to unveil a whole host of new programmes to help plug that gap.

“We’ve 35 new programmes currently being planned,” he said. These are in areas GMIT hasn’t been involved in before, and will attract international students; as well as returning to their roots of providing apprenticeships such as electricians, tiling, plastering and block-laying.

GMIT is also branching out into medical devices apprenticeships and collaborating with local industry in the city, which is a medical device hub.

He said he’s not worried about GMIT running a “minor deficit” in the context of a €56 million annual budget. Dr Barry is confident the books can be balanced in 2016 through introducing new courses, and bringing back apprenticeships.

“A million or two can be found relatively easy in terms of efficiencies but it’s not just about efficiencies, it’s about growing the organisation. We’ve a spate of 35 new programmes currently being planned in areas the institute hasn’t been involved in before to attract new students.

“It is business sensitive, so I can’t share those with you but we are looking at programme diversification. The significant reason for that would be to create programmes that might attract international students as an area of growth,” he added.