Provostial candidates Prof Jane Ohlmeyer, Prof Linda Hogan and Prof Linda Doyle largely emerged unscathed today from their first live, in-person debate, which was moderated by RTÉ journalist Sharon Ní Bheoláin.
The provostial hustings have been fairly staid – if informative – affairs, and have allowed candidates to largely avoid confrontation or scrutiny. Ní Bheoláin’s aim was to liven the debate up and push candidates further.
This strategy was successful at times, and candidates disagreed with each other more openly than on other occasions. However, for the most part, each candidate stuck to their scripts, despite prodding from Ní Bheoláin.
Ní Bheoláin pressed particularly hard for specifics on the candidates’ funding plans for College. Doyle was adamant that she would not propose fee increases for students, but provided little in the way of hard numbers. She pointed to philanthropy, arguing there is “room for us to push that further”.
Ohlmeyer also lauded philanthropic donations, but warned that “we’re not going to let the state off the hook”. She showed a particular reluctance to provide hard figures throughout the discussion – when pushed by Ní Bheoláin to provide specific numbers, or even ballpark estimates, Ohlmeyer insisted that this was a “very complicated exercise”.
Throughout the campaign, Ohlmeyer has sought to strike a balance between academic integrity and commercial revenue streams, but was less measured today, remarking that “the tourists will come back”.
Hogan once again pledged to create a new revenue stream through “new partnerships with industry and universities” that would cover “at least 20 per cent” of College expenditure over her 10-year term. While she has frequently made reference to her time as Vice Provost, when Ireland was last in the throes of a recession, she was keen to stress that she would not be looking to austerity to solve funding issues. The austerity measures “really eroded the core of the university’s student services [and] staffing”, she said.
Hogan was strong on climate change – which was somewhat abruptly brought up in the dying minutes of the debate by Ní Bheoláin – having had repeated her “ecological” vision for Trinity at multiple times during the debate. She reiterated her pledge to make Trinity carbon neutral by the end of her provostship – something Ohlmeyer clashed with her on, saying that it was “not realistic”.
Ohlmeyer instead brought up her plans to create a sustainability office, create separate posts for academics in climate change and encourage introducing plant-based diets into Trinity catering.
In response, Hogan said that “if we aren’t carbon neutral”, Trinity won’t have met national targets and would therefore be a “laggard”.
Meanwhile, Doyle focused primarily on the effect of travel, a topic that had so far been lacking in the debates. She proposed creating a fund that academics could pay into when they travel to support climate-based research. However, these sentiments rang somewhat hollow, after Doyle had forcefully emphasised the importance of academics being international earlier in the debate.
The subject of Trinity East is fast becoming a thorn in the side for the three candidates: while Doyle seems eager to push ahead with the project, it’s still not clear, almost eight weeks into the campaign, what Trinity East could look like under the next provost – whoever it may be.
According to Ohlmeyer, “the ambition is fantastic, [but] the timing is wrong”. College was “risking bankrupting the mothership” with the project, suggesting that it could be pared back somewhat in the short term if she is elected. Hogan agreed that “the ambition is absolutely right” but suggested that shifting focus to a new campus space was not the way to go, referring to the existing “poor quality space for many of our researchers”.
Rifts arose between the three candidates on the issue of rankings as Hogan and Ohlmeyer reasserted their stance that Trinity needs to improve its standing in the rankings, while Doyle distinguished herself in maintaining that this should not be a goal to obsess over.
Hogan cited the administrative burden placed on staff as a key inhibitor to Trinity’s position in the rankings which she said was “impeding our staff’s ability to do research”.
Hogan, accused of sounding “utopian” by Ní Bheoláin, said that she will address this issue in a different way to how it has been proposed in the previous three Provost elections in which the issue of overbearing administration has been brought up.
At risk of sounding vague, however, Hogan avoided concrete avenues for achieving this saying that she would focus on issues “below the radar” and take a “very detailed” approach.
Doyle, standing alone among the three, said she has a “very different view of the rankings”, adding: “Rankings shouldn’t drive our behaviour, behaviour should drive our ranking.”
Ohlmeyer struck an even more affirmative tone than Hogan, reiterating her stance that the rankings “do matter” for reasons such as recruitment, philanthropy, and foreign direct investment.
Ní Bheoláin requested from Ohlmeyer at least a “ballpark” figure on what it would cost to catapult Trinity into the top 50, which Ohlmeyer refused to give, citing the vast amount of variables and complexity of her proposals. She said: “If it’s a back-of-the-envelope figure I would challenge it immediately.”
In light of the historic all-female race, Ní Bheoláin challenged candidates on College conditions for women and parents, and each was clearly enthusiastic to engage with the subject. Ohlmeyer highlighted that 60 per cent of Trinity students are female, but women only account for 40 per cent of senior staff. All candidates were critical of the current childcare provisions, with Ohlmeyer calling them “woeful”.
A pillar of Doyle’s manifesto is her pledge to review promotion structures which she argues would reduce inequalities. Hogan said that women are “generally the ones who ask for less”, and called for better clarity in terms of salary scales.
Next week will be a busy one for candidates, as they face into three hustings, with the Irish Federation of University Teachers, Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union and the Graduate Students’ Union running one hustings each.
