UCC internal conflict - Worthy of debate

Universities should be safe houses for dissent.

But there is a fine line between intellectual debate and infighting.

The row between the University College Cork School of Applied Social Studies and university president Dr Michael Murphy over the latter’s remarks about the burden of educating disadvantaged students has an important issue at its core.

Universities are being asked to do more with fewer resources. Dr Murphy fears failing exceptional students and losing them to overseas institutions.

Some of his colleagues, however, fear that by suggesting some resources used to support weaker students be redistributed to the most academically gifted, Dr Murphy has lost sight of what educational institutions are meant to be about.

There is validity in both viewpoints, but the way they have been exchanged — initially via an address to business people and latterly the college website — is unhelpful.

The issue is worthy of detailed analysis and reasoned argument leading, one would hope given the brainpower available to the institution, to workable solutions. Anything else gives the impression of a university sapped by internal conflict and divided on direction. Nothing is more likely to send a student scurrying abroad for their inspiration than that.