The issue of whether SFI, PRTLI and so on have done more harm than good is a real one; on http://universitywatchdog.wordpress.com/, for example, most voters seem to think that PRTLI should end. The huge investment in SFI has notoriously led to very few new companies.
The example of Stanford, Yahoo, Google and so on is often used as a justification for encumbering the taxpayer with the lifestyles of star academics. This writer has been a faculty member at Stanford; the Google story is that the nascent search engine was rubbished by eminent Stanford academics, and Google's founders moved off-campus with the loss of tens of billions in possible licensing revenue for Stanford . Variations of the same story occurred with Yahoo, and indeed Hewlett-Packard.
A quick analysis should work wonders. Star academics, particularly imported ones, need many drones to implement their plans. The fact that these drones end up with PhD's is irrelevant; we are already over-producing them. So the many gifted young men and women doing graduate work are being removed until age 30 or so from the opportunity – indeed, the felt need – to start a business. At this point, and having been de-skilled by immersion in an often cloying academic environment, the 30-year old is lost to entrepreneurship for life. The expensive work of the star academics itself is often done in an antiquated paradigm, and will prove evanescent, whatever the immediate impact in terms of citations etc looks like.
It is obscene to ask the tens of thousands of 3-hour-a-day (and more) commuters to continue to pay additionally for academics already earning more than 6 figures. It is also counter-productive, and effectively ensures a decline in entrepreneurship, with the Irish Sergei Brins being tied up by the kind of academics (like Don Norman, who publicly admits his mistake) who will stifle them. The pot of gold that the Irish state believed it had back in the old Medialab days is gone; it is time now to scrap SFI and PRTLI as well. I invite readers to look at my 2001 interview with the WSJ to check my track record here;
The Medialab disaster
With this in mind, it is remarkable to see the person who has done most to attempt to centralize non-accountable, arbitrary power in universities inveighing against government “interference” while simultaneously asking for sustained government help;
Creathadh mhála
What we have seen since 2000 is a project which would remove universities from any state control, while requesting funding for frivolous lawsuits, union-busting, and allowing attested bullying both of staff and students. The person who has most driven this will soon be gone, Deo Gratias; let us look for a better way to operate after his (unfortunately relativistic) 15 minutes of fame is over.
First of all, it is as well to point out that there was science in Ireland before SFI; indeed, substantially better science than SFI will ever produce. Indeed, there is a rather beautiful summary of it, as Gaeilge, in MacCnaimhin, Séamus (1966). Eireannaigh San Eolaiocht. Dun Dealgan: Magowan.
How much funding did Hamilton need to produce the idea of Quaternions, and to rephrase Newton's second law in that elegant formalism we call simply “The Hamiltonian” with its multifarious other uses? What forms did Boole fill out to produce his eponymous logic? Granted, Boyle had the inadvertent gift of a large part of Munster to work with, but the indigenes in this book (Keane, O'Higgins, O'Sullivan) did not.
The extravagant funding by SFI et al is likely to lead to bad science, as well as a decline in entrepeneurship, as grant applicants follow fashions rather than do the kind of deep reflection that most recently was done by our Nobel laureate Walton. The attempt to destroy tenure has probably cost as much as SFI itself; apart from the immediate legal costs, there has been the resignation apparent in many of the more experienced staff, who have reduced their commitment to DCU and simply calculated that their house value should be able to see them through if they are summarily dismissed, as is the plan. The contempt shown them by management in its attempt to install summary dismissal is worsened by the fact that many of these staff sacrificed the best years of their lives for DCU and their students.
What we have seen is essentially an attempt by the 1997-2009 government to create its own scientists to replace those already there, exactly as the botched Medialab project was a hamfisted attempt to create its own software creators. Every project announced by SFI should be seen as a defeat; it is the replacement of an autochtonous alternative by a highly expensive and usually both imported and inferior alternative. The commuters who wake at 5-30 am to start their day are unlikely to remain patient for much longer.
In fact, there is a much deeper argument to be made about a state that will soon have to borrow more than it raises in tax in order to meet its basic obligations. It is very possible that the Irish state may soon be largely irrelevant to the lives of most of its “citizens”. Those of us who set up DCU in the first place - and indeed found paid work placements for students at the likes of Stanford – are ready to step up to the plate again.
Seán Ó Nualláin Ph.D. 9u Samhain 2009
Monday, November 9, 2009
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Why academic tenure is in the national interest
Consider the following scenario – a gifted Irish undergraduate becomes inspired by a subject like vascular biology and its potential in alleviating human suffering. He asks for an appointment to see the professor who most interested him in the subject and expresses interest in doing graduate work. The professor welcomes the proposal, but explains that he, the professor, can be summarily dismissed at any moment without cause. In fact, there is no way he can guarantee that he will be in office in 5 minutes, let alone the decade or so that the student will need him as a mentor to navigate the slippery slope of Ph.D., postdoctoral assignments, and initial tenure track position if he remains in academia.
Being a responsible and compassionate professional, the professor will point out that there are over 400 universities in the USA to which the student can apply and that academic tenure is established there. He will add that no American university has ever argued to its highest court the case for summary dismissal of academics without cause that the Irish supreme court heard on 29th June, 2009. The role of the public university in the USA has evolved over time to include the education and rounded formation of undergraduates, providing a forum for the debate of pressing societal issues in an impartial environment, and research. The institution of academic tenure co-evolved with this magnificent ideal of the public university and is granted only after an often harrowing apprenticeship, with few achieving it under the age of 35. It is important to note that tenured academics can in fact be fired for misconduct, and rightly so; however, they cannot involuntarily be made redundant. Of course, the USA has acquired almost a monopoly of the word's top universities; we shall look later at how to get around the redundancy issue.
The notion of the modern private university is almost uniquely American, and largely reflects the accumulation of capital that US society allows; yet tenure has not been seriously compromised even in the American private universities. The Irish situation is almost unique in world terms. Even if, as fortunately seems likely, DCU loses its quixotic and generously (if inadvertently so) taxpayer-funded appeal to Clarke's high court judgement, both academic tenure and job security in Ireland were effectively destroyed by the 1990 industrial relations act. By prohibiting strikes for “individual dismissals”, this act allowed summary dismissal without use of any agreed procedures. The affected worker can try his luck with the effectively unenforceable recommendations of Ireland's various labour relations boards, and watch as management appeal, defer, adjourn, and the case eventually makes its way through the circuit and High courts to the Supreme court a decade or more later. Alternatively, (s)he can attempt to use the common law immediately through the courts system; the employer, if state-funded, knows full well that here, too, it can simply run up the costs and run out the clock. A final irony is that even the high court has proven unable to insist that a reinstated employee be returned to her duties; the one case that has run the whole gauntlet of courts at UCC cost the taxpayer an estimated 5 million Euro.
The public sector unions have shown little resilience in dealing with an aggressive state-funded management; the economic climate of the next decade might demonstrate that they became little other than firemen who put out industrial brushfires while the state announced the largesse it was distributing to the “union's” closed-shop “members”. In particular, the unions in blushing virgin fashion refuse to hire legal teams at fora like the EAT wherein management has no such cavil. Yet that is not quite the worst aspect of the academic industrial relations set-up in Ireland today. In fact, it could be sorted out immediately by insisting on “double jeopardy” in unfair dismissals, giving the employer only one shot within a period of 3 months (as the legislation seems originally to have intended) and, similarly, by upholding the 2005 European court of Human Rights judgement (Morris and Steele vs. UK) that prohibits use of massively disproportionate legal firepower even by private companies, let alone state bodies like Irish universities, against individuals.
Universities originally arose from the will of students and scholars, respectively, to learn and teach. The administrative infrastructure was initially conceived of as subordinate to the university community, and in particular the community of scholars called the faculty. Yet, after gestures in the direction of academic freedom, the Irish 1997 universities act enshrined an executive in the “chief officer”, and Dail proceedings (for example, 18/12/2002) indicated that the state had little or no role in intervening in what it called the “day to day” operation of its universities. It is fair to say that this kind of management ideal is very Irish; efficiency is confused with centralization of power. The result is that an utterly unaccountable source of power has emerged – as we have seen – one that can dismiss staff, ignore students' petitions, and indeed publicly humiliate High Court judges brought in as chancellor without any governmental sanction. Coupled with the recent overtures to “business interests”, the result is a structure in which academics may ultimately be powerless fronts for billions of state research funding that ends up directly serving short-term corporate interests at the expense of the nation. Regrettably, facets of the Irish media, including the Times, portrayed this craven surrender to short-term corporate interests as exciting and new.
Yet the situation in Ireland is worse still. The USA distinguishes the accreditation bodies, private enterprises to whom all colleges subscribe, and the various public and private third level institutions. In Ireland, HETAC is a state body. Therefore, education at the level that will dominate the cultural, economic, and industrial progress of the country is an oligarchy. More importantly, it is conspicuously not working. The billions thrown at research since 2000 are, rather famously, yielding little or nothing by way of new businesses. Tens of millions are being spent by university administrators in often vexatious legal processes to get rid of (equally often) very high-performing academics – one can only assume, pour encourager les autres. Academic appointments to radically new disciplines are made by ill-qualified “old guards” with the expected disastrous consequences; the sclerosis in the university departmental structures is best attested by the fact that Ireland is the only OECD country not to have a bachelor's degree in , to take but one example,a multidisciplinary area like Cognitive Science.
So what is to be done? The 1997 act needs to be rewritten; the CEO role adds nothing except rancour, and the idea that the CEO should get involved in disciplinary procedures involving suspension and dismissal, formerly the sole province of the minister, has already ruined several lives. No attempt has been made by university administrators correctly to define tenure, and they should be held to account for this as for other examples of their waste. Giving them unbridled use of legal firms like Arthur Cox and McCann Fitzgerald, as we have seen recently, is like giving submachine guns to children.
Finally, the sublime ideal of the public university needs to be affirmed, and yet they need proper monitoring. One idea might be to subject their accreditation to a suitably re-constituted HETAC; none of the Irish universities has been subjected to US-type of scrutiny for several decades (or, indeed, for centuries in the case of TCD). This accreditation body might also consider proposals from private colleges to teach courses that do not yet fall within the conventional purview of state universities; for example, computer science, now a core university subject, might have been initially farmed out in this way on a trial basis 50 years or so ago. Should the subject have legs, the state might invite the private college to teach it within a state university as a stepping-stone to creating tenured positions. The state might thus invite tenders to teach whatever subjects it views as promising, but not yet worthy of the full mechanism of state university incorporation, and tenured faculty. This will introduce the necessary dynamism.
When the attack on academic tenure in Ireland began in earnest about a decade ago, it was in the context of a state arguably heading toward dangerous waters indeed with e-voting and other such initiatives. That is no longer the case; while we are likely to be broke for a decade at least, we shall at least have the consolation in society as a whole of intellectual freedom as defined by Terrence MacSwiney; the right to live our lives by our personal beliefs. Academic tenure can perhaps best be seen as a salutary and ultimately efficient intensification of this dynamic within our universities. Should university managements, having lost all battles to date, eventually win the war, the loss will be the state's; brighter students will seek out independent colleges where academic freedom is the norm.
Seán Ó Nualláin Ph.D. 30u Mean Fomhair 2009
PS For the record, here is the sequence of attenuation of tenure at DCU
1979
NIHE act. Suspension and dismissal reserved for Minister of Education
1985
Comprehensive agreement between FWUI and NIHE empowers NIHE to do suspension and dismissal, but only according to specified procedures.
A contract of employment is drawn up under this comprehensive agreement with an explicit specification of tenure in uneasy juxtaposition with 3 months' notice. However, the courts interpret "tenure" as superceding the notice requirement and the 3 months is a dead letter after probation
1995
DCU publish a new industrial relations document, one not agreed by the union. However, they photocopy the signatures from the 1985 agreement to imbue it with (fake) legitimacy. The make-believe signers in 1995 include Pat Cullen, who had left DCU 4 years before. This, of course, is fraud
Employment contracts are changed as follows;
1. Tenure is excluded from all contracts post 1995
2. A "place of work" is specified; before 1995, the understanding was that employees could work from home, as academics do internationally
3. Academic freedom was removed
1997
The universities act is passed, with the requirement for a new disciplinary procedure and specification of tenure.
2000
In their new disciplinary statute, DCU decide to specify tenure as the 3 months' notice requirement. It is rejected by DCU governing authority
2000 - later
A university president claiming competence in industrial/employment law (as distinct from industrial relations, which he rejects as a pointless exercise) is appointed at DCU. His previous employment is at Hull, notoriously the source of the Edgar Page case which destroyed tenure in Britain.
2001
The statute is is accepted by DCU governing authority
2002
Staff vote unanimously against the statute; the labour court pronounces it illegal
2003
The Fleming judgement; statute illegal
2006 -2007
The Clarke injunction and judgement; statute illegal, and the 3 month's notice provision is found inaccessible on the printed form of the statute, giving rise to speculation of what DCU governing authority actually passed
2008
For the first time in Irish history, a "no-confidence" vote in university management is carried by secret ballot open to all staff.
2009
The supreme court to rule on the statute.
Being a responsible and compassionate professional, the professor will point out that there are over 400 universities in the USA to which the student can apply and that academic tenure is established there. He will add that no American university has ever argued to its highest court the case for summary dismissal of academics without cause that the Irish supreme court heard on 29th June, 2009. The role of the public university in the USA has evolved over time to include the education and rounded formation of undergraduates, providing a forum for the debate of pressing societal issues in an impartial environment, and research. The institution of academic tenure co-evolved with this magnificent ideal of the public university and is granted only after an often harrowing apprenticeship, with few achieving it under the age of 35. It is important to note that tenured academics can in fact be fired for misconduct, and rightly so; however, they cannot involuntarily be made redundant. Of course, the USA has acquired almost a monopoly of the word's top universities; we shall look later at how to get around the redundancy issue.
The notion of the modern private university is almost uniquely American, and largely reflects the accumulation of capital that US society allows; yet tenure has not been seriously compromised even in the American private universities. The Irish situation is almost unique in world terms. Even if, as fortunately seems likely, DCU loses its quixotic and generously (if inadvertently so) taxpayer-funded appeal to Clarke's high court judgement, both academic tenure and job security in Ireland were effectively destroyed by the 1990 industrial relations act. By prohibiting strikes for “individual dismissals”, this act allowed summary dismissal without use of any agreed procedures. The affected worker can try his luck with the effectively unenforceable recommendations of Ireland's various labour relations boards, and watch as management appeal, defer, adjourn, and the case eventually makes its way through the circuit and High courts to the Supreme court a decade or more later. Alternatively, (s)he can attempt to use the common law immediately through the courts system; the employer, if state-funded, knows full well that here, too, it can simply run up the costs and run out the clock. A final irony is that even the high court has proven unable to insist that a reinstated employee be returned to her duties; the one case that has run the whole gauntlet of courts at UCC cost the taxpayer an estimated 5 million Euro.
The public sector unions have shown little resilience in dealing with an aggressive state-funded management; the economic climate of the next decade might demonstrate that they became little other than firemen who put out industrial brushfires while the state announced the largesse it was distributing to the “union's” closed-shop “members”. In particular, the unions in blushing virgin fashion refuse to hire legal teams at fora like the EAT wherein management has no such cavil. Yet that is not quite the worst aspect of the academic industrial relations set-up in Ireland today. In fact, it could be sorted out immediately by insisting on “double jeopardy” in unfair dismissals, giving the employer only one shot within a period of 3 months (as the legislation seems originally to have intended) and, similarly, by upholding the 2005 European court of Human Rights judgement (Morris and Steele vs. UK) that prohibits use of massively disproportionate legal firepower even by private companies, let alone state bodies like Irish universities, against individuals.
Universities originally arose from the will of students and scholars, respectively, to learn and teach. The administrative infrastructure was initially conceived of as subordinate to the university community, and in particular the community of scholars called the faculty. Yet, after gestures in the direction of academic freedom, the Irish 1997 universities act enshrined an executive in the “chief officer”, and Dail proceedings (for example, 18/12/2002) indicated that the state had little or no role in intervening in what it called the “day to day” operation of its universities. It is fair to say that this kind of management ideal is very Irish; efficiency is confused with centralization of power. The result is that an utterly unaccountable source of power has emerged – as we have seen – one that can dismiss staff, ignore students' petitions, and indeed publicly humiliate High Court judges brought in as chancellor without any governmental sanction. Coupled with the recent overtures to “business interests”, the result is a structure in which academics may ultimately be powerless fronts for billions of state research funding that ends up directly serving short-term corporate interests at the expense of the nation. Regrettably, facets of the Irish media, including the Times, portrayed this craven surrender to short-term corporate interests as exciting and new.
Yet the situation in Ireland is worse still. The USA distinguishes the accreditation bodies, private enterprises to whom all colleges subscribe, and the various public and private third level institutions. In Ireland, HETAC is a state body. Therefore, education at the level that will dominate the cultural, economic, and industrial progress of the country is an oligarchy. More importantly, it is conspicuously not working. The billions thrown at research since 2000 are, rather famously, yielding little or nothing by way of new businesses. Tens of millions are being spent by university administrators in often vexatious legal processes to get rid of (equally often) very high-performing academics – one can only assume, pour encourager les autres. Academic appointments to radically new disciplines are made by ill-qualified “old guards” with the expected disastrous consequences; the sclerosis in the university departmental structures is best attested by the fact that Ireland is the only OECD country not to have a bachelor's degree in , to take but one example,a multidisciplinary area like Cognitive Science.
So what is to be done? The 1997 act needs to be rewritten; the CEO role adds nothing except rancour, and the idea that the CEO should get involved in disciplinary procedures involving suspension and dismissal, formerly the sole province of the minister, has already ruined several lives. No attempt has been made by university administrators correctly to define tenure, and they should be held to account for this as for other examples of their waste. Giving them unbridled use of legal firms like Arthur Cox and McCann Fitzgerald, as we have seen recently, is like giving submachine guns to children.
Finally, the sublime ideal of the public university needs to be affirmed, and yet they need proper monitoring. One idea might be to subject their accreditation to a suitably re-constituted HETAC; none of the Irish universities has been subjected to US-type of scrutiny for several decades (or, indeed, for centuries in the case of TCD). This accreditation body might also consider proposals from private colleges to teach courses that do not yet fall within the conventional purview of state universities; for example, computer science, now a core university subject, might have been initially farmed out in this way on a trial basis 50 years or so ago. Should the subject have legs, the state might invite the private college to teach it within a state university as a stepping-stone to creating tenured positions. The state might thus invite tenders to teach whatever subjects it views as promising, but not yet worthy of the full mechanism of state university incorporation, and tenured faculty. This will introduce the necessary dynamism.
When the attack on academic tenure in Ireland began in earnest about a decade ago, it was in the context of a state arguably heading toward dangerous waters indeed with e-voting and other such initiatives. That is no longer the case; while we are likely to be broke for a decade at least, we shall at least have the consolation in society as a whole of intellectual freedom as defined by Terrence MacSwiney; the right to live our lives by our personal beliefs. Academic tenure can perhaps best be seen as a salutary and ultimately efficient intensification of this dynamic within our universities. Should university managements, having lost all battles to date, eventually win the war, the loss will be the state's; brighter students will seek out independent colleges where academic freedom is the norm.
Seán Ó Nualláin Ph.D. 30u Mean Fomhair 2009
PS For the record, here is the sequence of attenuation of tenure at DCU
1979
NIHE act. Suspension and dismissal reserved for Minister of Education
1985
Comprehensive agreement between FWUI and NIHE empowers NIHE to do suspension and dismissal, but only according to specified procedures.
A contract of employment is drawn up under this comprehensive agreement with an explicit specification of tenure in uneasy juxtaposition with 3 months' notice. However, the courts interpret "tenure" as superceding the notice requirement and the 3 months is a dead letter after probation
1995
DCU publish a new industrial relations document, one not agreed by the union. However, they photocopy the signatures from the 1985 agreement to imbue it with (fake) legitimacy. The make-believe signers in 1995 include Pat Cullen, who had left DCU 4 years before. This, of course, is fraud
Employment contracts are changed as follows;
1. Tenure is excluded from all contracts post 1995
2. A "place of work" is specified; before 1995, the understanding was that employees could work from home, as academics do internationally
3. Academic freedom was removed
1997
The universities act is passed, with the requirement for a new disciplinary procedure and specification of tenure.
2000
In their new disciplinary statute, DCU decide to specify tenure as the 3 months' notice requirement. It is rejected by DCU governing authority
2000 - later
A university president claiming competence in industrial/employment law (as distinct from industrial relations, which he rejects as a pointless exercise) is appointed at DCU. His previous employment is at Hull, notoriously the source of the Edgar Page case which destroyed tenure in Britain.
2001
The statute is is accepted by DCU governing authority
2002
Staff vote unanimously against the statute; the labour court pronounces it illegal
2003
The Fleming judgement; statute illegal
2006 -2007
The Clarke injunction and judgement; statute illegal, and the 3 month's notice provision is found inaccessible on the printed form of the statute, giving rise to speculation of what DCU governing authority actually passed
2008
For the first time in Irish history, a "no-confidence" vote in university management is carried by secret ballot open to all staff.
2009
The supreme court to rule on the statute.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Whose university? Our university!– UC on strike
UC Berkeley has a perhaps undeserved reputation as a hotbed of student radicalism. In the 1930's, its football players were used as strikebreakers/scab labour on the docks in West Coast USA; it is notoriously associated with nuclear weapons. Its reputation derives from the reaction to a particularly asinine recommendation from its board of regents banning free assembly in the 1960's.
Let us be clear. The board of regents is not an academic body; it is currently drawn largely from business. Yet the regents have much more power than governing authorities of Irish universities, including the theoretical power to alter curricula. In general, that provision has been treated as a dead letter; however, let us note the impetus in Ireland to involving the business wonder-boys (and girls) in the governance of our tertiary education.
The response to the ban on free assembly and freedom of speech by both faculty and students was magnificent. It then mutated into a hydra-headed set of agenda, including a very deep questioning of what the process of university formation was about. It culminates in the student leader Mario Savio's declaration that “when the operation of the machine becomes so odious....you've got to put your bodies upon the gears...and you've got to make it stop”. The ban was in violation of the first amendment of the US constitution, and eventually academic senate voted against it on those grounds. There is now a “Free Speech” cafe on UC Berkeley campus, with excerpts from Mario's speeches on the walls and tables, and the university curates a record of the events;
Free Speech movement resources
So, until recently, the victories of Savio and the Free Speech movement (FSM) seemed secure. The has, however, been a budget tightening, mainly due to to strange restrictions on tax-gathering, and all three stakeholders- students, faculty, and non-teaching staff – are being asked to take pay cuts. In the same way as Irish university presidents are plenipotentiary, UC President Mark Yudof asked for emergency powers, and awarded himself a pay- rise. The students have been asked to accept a 32% raise in fees; all faculty and staff have to accept a pay-cut.
The response, somewhat to our surprise, was a one-day strike throughout the California system, and a massive rally at Sproul Hall, home of some of the most dangerous clashes between the FSM movement and the authorities. The chant " Whose university? Our university!" rang out repeatedly. The Daily Cal reported the events
(see http://www.dailycal.org/article/106767/ )
So where does this leave us? The proposal to introduce summary dismissal at DCU is far more radical than anything the UC Regents ever attempted. Supreme Court Judge Susan Denham described it as “the end of academic freedom”. Let us see how she extends this argument in her forthcoming judgment.
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 24 u Mean Fomhair 2009
Friday, September 18, 2009
An undergraduate cognitive science programme for Ireland
It may have been forgotten that my friends and I set up the first undergraduate degree at DCU. With the help of the mainly Irish staff in 1990 DCU, and instidiud teangolaiochta, we created a degree document that was accepted by the universities of Saarbruecken, Bielefeld, Nancy 2, and Goteborg as suitable for teaching to their students. The DCU administration, as is its wont, turned an extremely low-cost, successful degree which students flocked to and loved to a ruinously expensive, debauched capitulation to software localization that no longer exists because students voted with their feet.
The degree was deliberately designed as a precursor to a more general cognitive science degree. This subject studies mind as an informational system; it incorporates elements of philosophy, psychology, linguistics, AI, ethnoscience and - increasingly – neuroscience and other biological sciences. The burden of the discipline currently falls disproportionately on educators and students, in my opinion, and that may not be a bad thing. I love teaching the subject.
With that in mind, I have had visiting positions in biology, neuroscience,, and computer science at UC Berkeley, AI at NRC Canada, and philosophy at Stanford. It could be the case that I am slow, and the correct response was to use Irish taxpayers' money to create adjunct positions at DCU for Edward de Bono and various already well-paid UCD academics. At the same time as bringing in these guns for hire, a savage attack on tenure is being implemented, as documented here.
Having read as much of the work of these adjuncts as I could, I failed to get the point. Again, I may be slow; but my GRE results indicate that, if I am, so is 99.92% of the American population. If the problems of cognitive science can be solved in the way that de Bono proposes, the scientists who have sponsored my work in various ways (publishing and teaching with me, endorsing my courses) at both UC Berkeley and Stanford are equally slow, Yet the international consensus is that they are not slow.
So where does this leave us? The opinion of this writer is that, just as the pathetic self-indulgence of our financial sector has disgraced Ireland for at least a decade, so this feeble-minded adjunct system at DCU has destroyed what made DCU, if briefly, an excellent institution – a delicate combination of teamwork, and individual initiative done, as we felt, for the sake of our country.
I outline the general structure of what I believe 21st century cog sci undergraduate education must be. Ireland is, to my knowledge, the only OECD country without such a degree. I have already written many of the courses; in the cases of the ones accredited by UC Berkeley and Stanford and developed and taught by me at these institutions, I include samplers with audio files. No claim is made that this can compete with proper classroom contact.
Readers will note that the degree has a biological slant; for example, text linguistics is studied as an instance of bioinformatics. In my opinion, that is the way of the future. I look forward to proposing this degree structure to academic council at DCU on my return.
B. Sc. . In Cognitive Science
Years 1 and 2; two 12-week semesters, 7 subjects, 14 hours lectures and 14 hours lab per week. (In year 2 one subject becomes optional with consequent lessening of class time).At present, the labs are computing; it could well be the case that students will eventually have the option of doing biology lab as well.
Year 3; mainly work experience/study abroad with a project
Year 4; Mainly project with roughly half the previous class-time
Focus specialisations are Symbolic Systems and Cognitive neuroscience.
COMMON FIRST YEAR
1 Algorithms: elements of searching and sorting
2 Cognitive science one: Introduction to methodologies and thrust of the
discipline
3 Biosemiotics one: will focus on the specifics of human symbolic
behaviour in a classical linguistics course
4 Mathematics: Introduction to logic and linear systems
5 Bioinformatics one: Introduction to the molecular biology of the gene, with
classical data base, search, and signal processing issues introduced as mediated through biological
process
6 Science and society 1: . An overview of contemporary science and its controversies, with an emphasis in ethical and philosophical Issues
7 Complementary Studies: students will have the option of taking a
language, or studying universal cultural issues mediated through Irish
studies (In the manner of American studies at UC Berkeley, students have to take a module on Irish studies before graduating)
Irish studies sampler: music and song
COMMON YEAR TWO
1. Mathematics will cover the emerging sciences of chaoplexity as well as develop the first years material. Non-linearity will be a focus.
2. Cognitive science, likewise, will begin to explore the areas classically
considered as its constituent disciplines : philosophy, psychology,
linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, Consciousness
3. Biosemiotics 2 History of the area, primitive signalling systems in nature, the roots of
human symbolic behaviour.
Biosemiotics 2 sampler
4. Bioinformatics will continue to familiarise the students with the details of molecular, developmental, cell, and integrative biology, while demonstrating the application of computational techniques to these areas and their large overlapping areas,
5 Science and society 2 will cover recent innovations. It will focus on controversies in one subject as an exemplar.
Science and society 2 sampler; focus on biology
6 Software engineering will follow up on the themes from the algorithms module with an applied orientation.
7. Again, Complementary studies will either be a language or culture mediated through Irish studies. In this year, it is optional.
COMMON YEAR THREE
This will involve a year studying or working abroad for students who have taken a foreign
language, working in the gaeltacht for those taking Irish, and otherwise
job experience . Students will also do a project,and can take one or more subjects from their final year if they wish while on work placement.
SPECIALISED YEAR FOUR: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS
1 Human Computer Interaction: multimodality, enablement, making computers
invisible.
2 AI ;classical Symbolic approaches versus subsymbolic and statistical
approaches
3Consciousness studies ; Philosophy of mind: Classical approaches to mind
and brain, recent developments
Introduction
History
History and neuroscience sample
4 Computational linguistics ; exemplified in practical approaches to machine
translation and speech processing.
5 Final year project for entire last semester
SPECIALISED YEAR FOUR: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
1Neural networks: Bep, Art, Sigma pi, etc.
2Cognitive neuroscience; EEG, Fmri, problems with temporal and spatial
discrimination. Resonate and fire networks
3Consciousness studies ; Philosophy of mind: Classical approaches to mind
and brain, recent developments (as above)
Introduction
History
History and neuroscience sample
4 Clinical work It is intended to get psychology certification for the
course that will motivate practical work from "test bashing " and
elementary first aid to preliminary diagnosis
5 Final year project for entire last semester
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 18 u Mean Fomhair 2009
The degree was deliberately designed as a precursor to a more general cognitive science degree. This subject studies mind as an informational system; it incorporates elements of philosophy, psychology, linguistics, AI, ethnoscience and - increasingly – neuroscience and other biological sciences. The burden of the discipline currently falls disproportionately on educators and students, in my opinion, and that may not be a bad thing. I love teaching the subject.
With that in mind, I have had visiting positions in biology, neuroscience,, and computer science at UC Berkeley, AI at NRC Canada, and philosophy at Stanford. It could be the case that I am slow, and the correct response was to use Irish taxpayers' money to create adjunct positions at DCU for Edward de Bono and various already well-paid UCD academics. At the same time as bringing in these guns for hire, a savage attack on tenure is being implemented, as documented here.
Having read as much of the work of these adjuncts as I could, I failed to get the point. Again, I may be slow; but my GRE results indicate that, if I am, so is 99.92% of the American population. If the problems of cognitive science can be solved in the way that de Bono proposes, the scientists who have sponsored my work in various ways (publishing and teaching with me, endorsing my courses) at both UC Berkeley and Stanford are equally slow, Yet the international consensus is that they are not slow.
So where does this leave us? The opinion of this writer is that, just as the pathetic self-indulgence of our financial sector has disgraced Ireland for at least a decade, so this feeble-minded adjunct system at DCU has destroyed what made DCU, if briefly, an excellent institution – a delicate combination of teamwork, and individual initiative done, as we felt, for the sake of our country.
I outline the general structure of what I believe 21st century cog sci undergraduate education must be. Ireland is, to my knowledge, the only OECD country without such a degree. I have already written many of the courses; in the cases of the ones accredited by UC Berkeley and Stanford and developed and taught by me at these institutions, I include samplers with audio files. No claim is made that this can compete with proper classroom contact.
Readers will note that the degree has a biological slant; for example, text linguistics is studied as an instance of bioinformatics. In my opinion, that is the way of the future. I look forward to proposing this degree structure to academic council at DCU on my return.
B. Sc. . In Cognitive Science
Years 1 and 2; two 12-week semesters, 7 subjects, 14 hours lectures and 14 hours lab per week. (In year 2 one subject becomes optional with consequent lessening of class time).At present, the labs are computing; it could well be the case that students will eventually have the option of doing biology lab as well.
Year 3; mainly work experience/study abroad with a project
Year 4; Mainly project with roughly half the previous class-time
Focus specialisations are Symbolic Systems and Cognitive neuroscience.
COMMON FIRST YEAR
1 Algorithms: elements of searching and sorting
2 Cognitive science one: Introduction to methodologies and thrust of the
discipline
3 Biosemiotics one: will focus on the specifics of human symbolic
behaviour in a classical linguistics course
4 Mathematics: Introduction to logic and linear systems
5 Bioinformatics one: Introduction to the molecular biology of the gene, with
classical data base, search, and signal processing issues introduced as mediated through biological
process
6 Science and society 1: . An overview of contemporary science and its controversies, with an emphasis in ethical and philosophical Issues
7 Complementary Studies: students will have the option of taking a
language, or studying universal cultural issues mediated through Irish
studies (In the manner of American studies at UC Berkeley, students have to take a module on Irish studies before graduating)
Irish studies sampler: music and song
COMMON YEAR TWO
1. Mathematics will cover the emerging sciences of chaoplexity as well as develop the first years material. Non-linearity will be a focus.
2. Cognitive science, likewise, will begin to explore the areas classically
considered as its constituent disciplines : philosophy, psychology,
linguistics, neuroscience, anthropology, Consciousness
3. Biosemiotics 2 History of the area, primitive signalling systems in nature, the roots of
human symbolic behaviour.
Biosemiotics 2 sampler
4. Bioinformatics will continue to familiarise the students with the details of molecular, developmental, cell, and integrative biology, while demonstrating the application of computational techniques to these areas and their large overlapping areas,
5 Science and society 2 will cover recent innovations. It will focus on controversies in one subject as an exemplar.
Science and society 2 sampler; focus on biology
6 Software engineering will follow up on the themes from the algorithms module with an applied orientation.
7. Again, Complementary studies will either be a language or culture mediated through Irish studies. In this year, it is optional.
COMMON YEAR THREE
This will involve a year studying or working abroad for students who have taken a foreign
language, working in the gaeltacht for those taking Irish, and otherwise
job experience . Students will also do a project,and can take one or more subjects from their final year if they wish while on work placement.
SPECIALISED YEAR FOUR: SYMBOLIC SYSTEMS
1 Human Computer Interaction: multimodality, enablement, making computers
invisible.
2 AI ;classical Symbolic approaches versus subsymbolic and statistical
approaches
3Consciousness studies ; Philosophy of mind: Classical approaches to mind
and brain, recent developments
Introduction
History
History and neuroscience sample
4 Computational linguistics ; exemplified in practical approaches to machine
translation and speech processing.
5 Final year project for entire last semester
SPECIALISED YEAR FOUR: COGNITIVE NEUROSCIENCE
1Neural networks: Bep, Art, Sigma pi, etc.
2Cognitive neuroscience; EEG, Fmri, problems with temporal and spatial
discrimination. Resonate and fire networks
3Consciousness studies ; Philosophy of mind: Classical approaches to mind
and brain, recent developments (as above)
Introduction
History
History and neuroscience sample
4 Clinical work It is intended to get psychology certification for the
course that will motivate practical work from "test bashing " and
elementary first aid to preliminary diagnosis
5 Final year project for entire last semester
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 18 u Mean Fomhair 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Representation of staff in disputes with management
SIPTU has a closed shop at DCU. SIPTU also refuses to pay for legal teams for its “members” in disputes with management, one of which disputes has rather famously been heard at the supreme court. The kindest interpretation is that they have a sentimental attachment to the IR of the 1980's, when social partnership was young, and everyone in Ireland - business, labour - felt part of the same team. A less generous interpretation is that they are very, very stingy and unwilling to rock the boat; my experiences with the musicians' union confirms this.
SIPTU's in-house legal rep is the socialist republican (mar dhea) Michael Halpenny; one assumes he was chosen as his name is only a slight overestimate of what SIPTU is willing to invest in defending its members. The colossal mess made by their lawyers, Bowler and Geraghty, in the early days of this disciplinary statute fiasco is best attested to by the fact the case went to the supreme court with a member paying from his own pocket to protect his colleagues.
It is important to note that management at DCU has no such compunction about litigation, and that DCU's president now in fact eschews negotiation in favour of litigation. This is consistent with UCC, where the head of HR, Keely, boasted of his acquaintance with the inside of courtrooms – inter alia, the rumoured E4 million of taxpayers' money spent on their loss against Fanning attests to this.
Ferdi's wiki page is rumoured frequently to be edited by its subject. Let us note what it says about the evolution of his industrial relations ideas;
“Von Prondzynski's published academic output has been influential in particular in the field of industrial relations and employment law. In his early work he argued for a disengagement of the law from industrial relations, taking the position that problems and disputes were better resolved through bargaining than through litigation.[4] ...... However, from the later 1980s onwards his views began to moderate, and he argued for a framework of employment regulation that took account of economic pressures and the need to maintain competitive conditions. “
Therefore, we can take it that DCU's ignoring the Labour court recommendation of 2002, RC verdict of 2003, and so on is no coincidence. To put it simply, might makes right, and they have infinite amount of taxpayers' money to pay the moral prostitutes at Arthur cox to destroy the lives of good academic staff. In one case, at least, this had contributed to the premature death of the staff member.
In my case, IBEC withdrew in 2003, and SIPTU allowed Arthur cox defer the hearing scheduled for Oct 8, 2003, with the result that I had to come back from the USA in Nov 2003 (it is now 3 times “on my own dime” that I've had to come back). It was clear that Patricia King and Chris Rowland for SIPTU were utterly unable to compete with Cox; in fact, Ms King was terribly upset by the aggression of Tom Mallon, Cox's counsel.
We needed a legal team, and SIPTU refused to provide one. Let us recall that the use of lawyers was management's idea, not ours; we were equalising representation, but without using taxpayers' money a la management. So I paid an additional 5-figure sum for a legal team, SIPTU withdrew and – lo and behold – the appalling procedural mistakes made by King and Rowland were overturned within an hour of the EAT reconvening on 28 July 2009. Moreover, the cross-examination of Von Prondzynski' was rather informative. It had always been my guess that VP is too fragmented a psyche to hold up under repeated questioning. And so, we not just heard that Josh Howarth took his own life, but also we heard that the disciplinary procedures 1985 agreement are still in place for pre-1997 people. (They were, as it happens, written by Ms King, who did a great job on them).
At the end, Tom Mallon threw us a freebie. One of the central problems in the Cahill case has been the divergence between Paul and VP about details of their meeting. Similarly, I had a meeting with VP in 2001, every detail of my written account of which VP corroborated under redirect from Mallon. VP was perhaps too tired at that stage to keep up his usual bluster.
The days of “negotiation” are indeed over. What management will learn the hard way is that SIPTU were doing a terrific job of protecting them from us, the staff. Equality of representation is European Law (Morris and Steele versus UK, 2005) and this absurd situation with a "union" taking millions every decade essentially to provide inadequate representation is unacceptable.
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 31 u Lunasa 2009
SIPTU's in-house legal rep is the socialist republican (mar dhea) Michael Halpenny; one assumes he was chosen as his name is only a slight overestimate of what SIPTU is willing to invest in defending its members. The colossal mess made by their lawyers, Bowler and Geraghty, in the early days of this disciplinary statute fiasco is best attested to by the fact the case went to the supreme court with a member paying from his own pocket to protect his colleagues.
It is important to note that management at DCU has no such compunction about litigation, and that DCU's president now in fact eschews negotiation in favour of litigation. This is consistent with UCC, where the head of HR, Keely, boasted of his acquaintance with the inside of courtrooms – inter alia, the rumoured E4 million of taxpayers' money spent on their loss against Fanning attests to this.
Ferdi's wiki page is rumoured frequently to be edited by its subject. Let us note what it says about the evolution of his industrial relations ideas;
“Von Prondzynski's published academic output has been influential in particular in the field of industrial relations and employment law. In his early work he argued for a disengagement of the law from industrial relations, taking the position that problems and disputes were better resolved through bargaining than through litigation.[4] ...... However, from the later 1980s onwards his views began to moderate, and he argued for a framework of employment regulation that took account of economic pressures and the need to maintain competitive conditions. “
Therefore, we can take it that DCU's ignoring the Labour court recommendation of 2002, RC verdict of 2003, and so on is no coincidence. To put it simply, might makes right, and they have infinite amount of taxpayers' money to pay the moral prostitutes at Arthur cox to destroy the lives of good academic staff. In one case, at least, this had contributed to the premature death of the staff member.
In my case, IBEC withdrew in 2003, and SIPTU allowed Arthur cox defer the hearing scheduled for Oct 8, 2003, with the result that I had to come back from the USA in Nov 2003 (it is now 3 times “on my own dime” that I've had to come back). It was clear that Patricia King and Chris Rowland for SIPTU were utterly unable to compete with Cox; in fact, Ms King was terribly upset by the aggression of Tom Mallon, Cox's counsel.
We needed a legal team, and SIPTU refused to provide one. Let us recall that the use of lawyers was management's idea, not ours; we were equalising representation, but without using taxpayers' money a la management. So I paid an additional 5-figure sum for a legal team, SIPTU withdrew and – lo and behold – the appalling procedural mistakes made by King and Rowland were overturned within an hour of the EAT reconvening on 28 July 2009. Moreover, the cross-examination of Von Prondzynski' was rather informative. It had always been my guess that VP is too fragmented a psyche to hold up under repeated questioning. And so, we not just heard that Josh Howarth took his own life, but also we heard that the disciplinary procedures 1985 agreement are still in place for pre-1997 people. (They were, as it happens, written by Ms King, who did a great job on them).
At the end, Tom Mallon threw us a freebie. One of the central problems in the Cahill case has been the divergence between Paul and VP about details of their meeting. Similarly, I had a meeting with VP in 2001, every detail of my written account of which VP corroborated under redirect from Mallon. VP was perhaps too tired at that stage to keep up his usual bluster.
The days of “negotiation” are indeed over. What management will learn the hard way is that SIPTU were doing a terrific job of protecting them from us, the staff. Equality of representation is European Law (Morris and Steele versus UK, 2005) and this absurd situation with a "union" taking millions every decade essentially to provide inadequate representation is unacceptable.
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 31 u Lunasa 2009
Friday, August 28, 2009
The lonely death of Dr. Joshua Howarth
Dr Josh Howarth was a brilliant organic chemist whose book “Core organic chemistry” (Wiley, 1998) is still being read. Apart from his massive contributions to campus life at DCU, he was on the editorial board of “Molecules”. In 2006, we were informed that Josh had died – in very early middle age – from a stroke, having left DCU a few years previously. Multiple religious services were held at DCU to commemorate him. It looked very dignified. His main mentor at DCU had been former director Albert Pratt.
DCU's president, in his sworn evidence at the EAT, finally told at least part of the story. First of all, he announced that Josh, in fact, had taken his own life. Several of us suspected this all along. Prondzynski then, in front of the press, announced that Josh had been an alcoholic (which is utterly unproven), and many attempts had been made to help him by DCU. Finally, it turns out that, far from leaving voluntarily, Josh had one of DCU's illegal disciplinary procedures used against him. As an Irish citizen, I am appalled that an Englishman suffered in this way at the hands of an Irish state entity.
I myself have been the subject of this “help” from DCU for the past 10 years. The “help” in question is called various things here in the US, like “fraud”, “criminal conspiracy”, and - Arthur Cox's specialty - “malicious prosecution” (Cox would not last for a second in a US courtroom, and are welcome to try and silence this blog over here in the US anytime). Josh's “mentor” Albert Pratt is a fraudster, and it would be easy to prove criminal conspiracy against him here. Moreover, there would be a wrongful death suit against DCU.
Josh had kids, and I am not sure whether I would be alive myself had I responsibilities of this scale. SIPTU should have called a strike immediately. That they have not, to put it gently, shows remarkable tolerance for management.
In the meantime, any staff member who gets a visit from management can fall back on two salient facts;
1.Prondzynski also said under oath that the procedures of the 1985 agreement, not the 2001 statute, obtain in my case. This is what we were trying to establish all along, and it is now game over; anyone tenured pre June 16, 1997 can appeal to the rights granted in 1985.
2.The 2001 statute is currently illegal. Why are there no sanctions against the miscreants who drafted and illegally used it? Why do they keep picking on good scientists, as the country goes down the tubes, and pay utterly incompetent and corrupt lawyers?
Finally, that dozens of academic economists came out against NAMA this week attests to the fact that our work in saving tenure has not been in vain.
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 28 u Lunasa 2009
PS 15/9/09 I have in the meantime bought Josh's book and gone through the introductory chapter, which I recommend to anyone who, like me, needed to revise this area.
Josh obviously loved, and was totally committed to his subject, and to being an academic. The reason I am alive and he is not is that, being Irish, I knew who DCU management and Arthur cox solicitors are, and knew how to treat them with appropriate contempt as they continue their criminal rampage through yet another state institution in these, the fading years of the first Irish state.
DCU's president, in his sworn evidence at the EAT, finally told at least part of the story. First of all, he announced that Josh, in fact, had taken his own life. Several of us suspected this all along. Prondzynski then, in front of the press, announced that Josh had been an alcoholic (which is utterly unproven), and many attempts had been made to help him by DCU. Finally, it turns out that, far from leaving voluntarily, Josh had one of DCU's illegal disciplinary procedures used against him. As an Irish citizen, I am appalled that an Englishman suffered in this way at the hands of an Irish state entity.
I myself have been the subject of this “help” from DCU for the past 10 years. The “help” in question is called various things here in the US, like “fraud”, “criminal conspiracy”, and - Arthur Cox's specialty - “malicious prosecution” (Cox would not last for a second in a US courtroom, and are welcome to try and silence this blog over here in the US anytime). Josh's “mentor” Albert Pratt is a fraudster, and it would be easy to prove criminal conspiracy against him here. Moreover, there would be a wrongful death suit against DCU.
Josh had kids, and I am not sure whether I would be alive myself had I responsibilities of this scale. SIPTU should have called a strike immediately. That they have not, to put it gently, shows remarkable tolerance for management.
In the meantime, any staff member who gets a visit from management can fall back on two salient facts;
1.Prondzynski also said under oath that the procedures of the 1985 agreement, not the 2001 statute, obtain in my case. This is what we were trying to establish all along, and it is now game over; anyone tenured pre June 16, 1997 can appeal to the rights granted in 1985.
2.The 2001 statute is currently illegal. Why are there no sanctions against the miscreants who drafted and illegally used it? Why do they keep picking on good scientists, as the country goes down the tubes, and pay utterly incompetent and corrupt lawyers?
Finally, that dozens of academic economists came out against NAMA this week attests to the fact that our work in saving tenure has not been in vain.
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 28 u Lunasa 2009
PS 15/9/09 I have in the meantime bought Josh's book and gone through the introductory chapter, which I recommend to anyone who, like me, needed to revise this area.
Josh obviously loved, and was totally committed to his subject, and to being an academic. The reason I am alive and he is not is that, being Irish, I knew who DCU management and Arthur cox solicitors are, and knew how to treat them with appropriate contempt as they continue their criminal rampage through yet another state institution in these, the fading years of the first Irish state.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
The racist discourse of DCU's president
There have been absolutely no racial slurs or any such allegations on this blog, nor will there ever be. It is its author's opinion, however, that the massive recent immigration to Ireland has been a catastrophe, a view he shares, as it happens, with Brian Lenihan, Ireland's minister for finance, who proposes this immigration as one of the principal reasons for Ireland's economic meltdown. Why he has not tried to stop it a la France, Germany, etc is a mystery. His comments were made on
‘The Last Word with Matt Cooper’ on Thursday (25/6/09)
However, DCU's (German) president has opposing views on this issue. For him, immigration is an unmitigated good. Recently, he announced that the Irish must become an ethnic minority on their own island for his (now tarnished) neoliberal dream to take flesh, an announcement relayed by the Skadi forum;
Germanic online community
Skadi, you will notice, welcomes visitors with this message;
“Welcome to Skadi Forum, the largest Germanic online community forum where you can join over 30,000 members from around the world discussing all things of concern to you”
It is our right as Irish citizens – and a fortiori as academics – to disagree, even vehemently, with mass immigration. This is particularly the case as Minister Lenihan also sees it as an evil. Are DCU management about to call Lenihan a racist?
In fact, Ferdinand began the racist discourse shortly before this conferring/commencement address with his sponsoring Bob Quinn's quaint “The Atlantean Irish” book (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2005). Bob thanks Ferdi fulsomely for supporting his thesis that the Irish are not “Celts” but - who knows what they are (and really, who cares)? Alert readers will recognize in the “Celtic” appellation itself a political minefield; “Celtic” was a term for the soft feminized “races” on the fringes of the eastern north-eastern atlantic archipelago.
Why the Irish state is prepared generously to subsidize these lunatic attacks on its very identity is a mystery - as indeed is its funding of revisionist historians to attack the state's right to collect the taxes that make their existence possible. In the meantime, those of us who believe that the Lisbon deal is an intensification of the forces that have already almost destroyed our country have a perfect right to say so within and outside the classroom
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 26 u Lunasa 2009
‘The Last Word with Matt Cooper’ on Thursday (25/6/09)
However, DCU's (German) president has opposing views on this issue. For him, immigration is an unmitigated good. Recently, he announced that the Irish must become an ethnic minority on their own island for his (now tarnished) neoliberal dream to take flesh, an announcement relayed by the Skadi forum;
Germanic online community
Skadi, you will notice, welcomes visitors with this message;
“Welcome to Skadi Forum, the largest Germanic online community forum where you can join over 30,000 members from around the world discussing all things of concern to you”
It is our right as Irish citizens – and a fortiori as academics – to disagree, even vehemently, with mass immigration. This is particularly the case as Minister Lenihan also sees it as an evil. Are DCU management about to call Lenihan a racist?
In fact, Ferdinand began the racist discourse shortly before this conferring/commencement address with his sponsoring Bob Quinn's quaint “The Atlantean Irish” book (Dublin: Lilliput Press, 2005). Bob thanks Ferdi fulsomely for supporting his thesis that the Irish are not “Celts” but - who knows what they are (and really, who cares)? Alert readers will recognize in the “Celtic” appellation itself a political minefield; “Celtic” was a term for the soft feminized “races” on the fringes of the eastern north-eastern atlantic archipelago.
Why the Irish state is prepared generously to subsidize these lunatic attacks on its very identity is a mystery - as indeed is its funding of revisionist historians to attack the state's right to collect the taxes that make their existence possible. In the meantime, those of us who believe that the Lisbon deal is an intensification of the forces that have already almost destroyed our country have a perfect right to say so within and outside the classroom
Seán O Nualláin Ph.D. 26 u Lunasa 2009
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