From IHE. Reactions, links to other news sources welcome.
There’s a simple way to test. Open a pre-2022 essay and copy-and-paste it into a new file.
2 responses to “Irish philosophers: does this account ring true to your experiences?”
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The comments about (a) preparedness of overseas students, and (b) the pressure to pass weaker students, don't ring true … at least, not in philosophy. If anything, the pressure to recruit overseas students has led to positive outcomes, in my experience, because those students have been excellent (at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels).
However, the article is correct on all the stuff about decreasing staff numbers, increasing teaching load, and cuts in funding for things like guest speakers and travel. And there's even more that could be said about the increase in admin work, lack of promotional and sabbatical opportunities, pressure to compete for external funding, heavy-handed bureaucracy and so on. And even though we've all suffered, I think that these problems are possibly exacerbated, for various reasons, in the smaller departments outside of Dublin.
I get the impression that perhaps we're over the worst of it and starting to turn the corner, but it'll take a while to undo the damage that's been done in the last six or seven years.
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I don't think it's easy to generalize. Those unlucky enough to be in departments where the number of lecturers dropped because of a freeze on recruitment probably ended up with a situation much like it's described in this article.
In Philosophy at UCD we didn't have to face that. Teaching and admin. therefore did not noticeably increase. All programmes were maintained at full strength and funding for hosting events as well as our own travel was at acceptable levels (echoing Joel). However, cuts in salaries were deep for everyone on the public sector pay roll (as lecturers in Ireland are).
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