UCD could have looked to homegrown leader

One of the most profound obligations of a leading university in any major city is its capacity to nurture, inspire, educate and deliver the next generation of a nation’s leadership.

I am not a graduate of UCD, nor do I have any prospective connection to it. But, as a citizen, who like all readers has observed the chaotic disintegration of several facets of its leadership and moral authority, I am very surprised that it was necessary to appoint a stranger to the role of 10th president of the nation’s largest university, notwithstanding how distinguished, eminent and accomplished the appointee may be.

This appointment begs the very basic observation that if the human resources compliment of UCD do not have a sufficiently ‘impressive track record of leadership roles in the university sector’ what confidence should the tens of thousands of students and prospective students over the next decade have in the capacity of UCD to imbue them with the confidence, vitality and leadership skills necessary to cope in an era of unprecedented challenge, constraint and uncertainty?