NUIG’s paranoia doesn’t mean they aren’t after it!

Bradley Bytes – A sort of political column by Dara Bradley

It can get lonely in the ivory towers of academia. So lonely, in fact, that lecturers and professors, and management at third level institutes sometimes get paranoid.

Even the high-flyers at NUI Galway feel underappreciated.

On more than one occasion, high-ranking staff at the university have revealed how they feel the wider public doesn’t appreciate them. And who is to blame for that? The Meeja, of course. Fancy that!

The minutes of NUIG’s Governing Body meetings reveals the persecution complex of the university sector.

At the April meeting, during a discussion of the financial difficulties faced by NUIG, Jim Browne, the president, “stated there has been continuous lobbying of politicians on this matter but that a lack of public sympathy with universities is a perennial problem”.

The previous year, when financing came up, his sentiments were echoed by members of Údarás Na hOllscoile. The minutes noted that “other members expressed the view that there was little sympathy in the higher echelons of State for the economic plight of higher education”.

As a former judge, An Cathaoirleach of Údarás Na hOllscoile, Catherine McGuinness, would know a thing or two about the unpopularity of legal eagles.

It was interesting to see, then, that the minutes recorded her observing that “academics are sometimes as unpopular as lawyers”.

Journalists, however, seem to be more unpopular with academics at NUIG than any other profession, judging by the minutes.

The sensitive souls at NUIG certainly have a few ‘digs’ at scribes during their meetings; and the “media” had more than a few dishonourable mentions.

At one meeting, “mischievous and ill-founded journalism” was cited in relation to a newspaper report about the resurrection of RAG Week.

The minutes record at another meeting that “one member struck a comparison between some of the negative publicity visited on the university in the print media and the sacrifices made by the staff in remuneration cuts alongside major success of the university that often go unacknowledged and undervalued”.

The president responded by saying the university Press Office is proactive “in seeking to project the good work of the university to the public at large but that, unfortunately recent years have shown that negative news travels better”.

To read Bradley Bytes in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.