Tag Archives: UCD

The Dublin Beauties

 

This morning.

Anyone?

UCD President Andrew Deeks addresses the 11th Confucius Institute Conference in China in 2016, where he was presented with with the “Medal of the Individual Performance Excellence Award” for his work as chair of the UCD Confucius Institute

This morning.

Via Irish Times:

Comments from University College Dublin (UCD) president Andrew Deeks, that concerns about a controversial Chinese institute on its campus were “misguided”, have been described as “worrying” by senior academics.

In a recent message to staff, Prof Deeks defended the hosting of a Chinese government-backed Confucius Institute by the south Dublin university.

Academics in UCD’s school of politics previously criticised the fact the institute was permitted to teach a class on Chinese politics to UCD students, given China’s human rights record.

*cough*

UCD academics criticise president’s defence of Beijing-linked institute (irish Times)

Meanwhile…

…this morning.

Via UCD professor Diarmaid Ferriter:

What is worrying and disappointing is how far the president of University Cocllege Dublin, Andrew Deeks, went this week in disparaging understandable concerns by some of his colleagues about the Confucius Institute in UCD. In an email to staff he said: “The UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland is a credit to the University and to everyone involved, including the successive Irish governments that have supported it, and something the whole UCD community should be proud of.”

He went further, however, lacerating those who have dared to challenge the appropriateness of the CI’s agenda: “I have been disappointed by some of the misguided commentary about the UCD Confucius Institute and the UCD Institute for Chinese Studies which has appeared. I would like to remind colleagues of the UCD values of integrity, collegiality, engagement and diversity . . . I have been particularly disturbed by implicit suggestions that the political loyalties of some colleagues can be inferred from their ethnicity, given our ongoing campaign against racism.”

I have never heard or read criticism of any individual associated with the CI that is based on ethnicity. The concerns are not about specific staff members but academic freedom and independence.

Let us not forget that two years ago proposed changes to UCDs academic freedom policy to allow for “divergent approaches” to that freedom due to the desire to drum up business with China and other countries was withdrawn because it was robustly challenged by staff.

Diarmaid Ferriter: UCD Confucius Institute not above criticism (irish Times)

This morning/afternoon.

UCD, Dublin 4.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin along with Vodaphone CEO Anne O’Leary (pic 2) at the launch of the expansion of NovaUCD, the university’s centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs

Meanwhile…

Meanwhile…

RollingNews

John McClean abused 23 boys while a teacher at Terenure College. He was appointed to head up UCD’s rugby academy

Via Gavin Cummiskey in the Irish Times (full article at link below):

…Everyone in south Dublin rugby circles knew McClean.

If this reporter heard the rumours about him when I was still a teenager in the late 1990s, can the decision makers back then honestly say the same whispers failed to reach their ears? If the answer is ‘we heard nothing’ then there is a far deeper problem than we already perceive it to be.

…Despite decades of sexual assault, John McClean wielded enormous power as UCD director of rugby. Terenure College and UCD must explain how he was able to skip from one rugby institution to another unchecked.

In the summer of ‘96 McClean the coach toured Australia with the Ireland schoolboys, some of whom have since become central figures in the professional game, before taking up his new job on the Belfield campus.

….If he had already admitted to abusing one boy – as court records show – then Terenure would have warned the IRFU and UCD before he ascended to one of the most influential positions in Irish rugby, right?

….His victims, one of whom described him as “evil personified,” and the public deserve to know precisely what happened between the summer of 1996 and the beginning of that first UCD term in the autumn of 1997. If for nothing else than to ensure that history does not repeat itself…

The Offload: John McClean questions can no longer be silenced (Gavin Cummiskey, The Irish Times)

Earlier: Blocking A Victim

RollingNews

Vector Motors former car showroom on Goatstown Road, Dublin 14; proposed student accomodation on the site close to UCD

Goatstown, Dublin 14.

CIS Ireland writes:

A strategic planning application has been granted by An Bord Pleanála for a €18m student accommodation development of 239 bed-spaces at the Vector Motors Site…

€18m – Student Accommodation (CIS)

Previously: O’Reilly-Hyland pays over €6.6m to secure high-profile south Dublin lands (Irish Tmes, September 11 ,2019)

This morning.

Further to reports earlier this year that UCD was considering amending the definition of academic freedom to allow the university to ‘expand further into countries which do not share the same values as those in the western world’…

Via The Times:

Academics at the college have accused the university of attempting to trade academic freedom for profit with one staff member saying it should be “absolutely ashamed” of the proposal.

….A working group had proposed an addendum to the definition of academic freedom at the university. The group said that a university with a large international footprint needed to “consider and appraise the risk of tension arising between the obligations regarding academic freedom and the strategic imperative to internationalise higher education“….

UCD proposal to ease protection for academic freedom ‘shameful’ (Brian Mahon, The Times)

Related: UCD agrees 50 year ‘free’ lease for Confucius Institute (Irish Times, April 17, 2015)

RTÉ

This morning.

Assistant Professor at University College Dublin Stefan Müller tweetz:

“New working paper with Aidan Regan: “The Compass of Irish Politics is Moving to the Left” Based on @csestweets data and the 2020 @ucdpolitics election poll, we show that the average Irish voter now identifies on the centre-left.

“Comments welcome!”

From the paper:

“…we find that respondents with lower incomes and higher education are most likely to self-identify on the left. In terms of voting behaviour, lower income voters and those who self-identify on the left have a higher probability to vote for Sinn Féin.

“Conversely, lower educated voters on higher incomes are most likely to self-identify on the right. In terms of voting behaviour, higher income voters and those who self-identify on the right are most likely to vote Fine Gael.

“The deeper theoretical question is what explains this variation, and why certain voters (lower income, women, urban, higher educated) are more likely to self-identify on the left than others? This requires much more longitudinal research, and more fine-grained data. But we suggest it is related to a growth in higher educated voters that do not earn high incomes, and the explicit left populist strategies of Sinn Féin.

“Sinn Fein’s left populism has enabled them to build a broad left coalition that cuts across gender, and one that integrates the preferences of low income households with low to middle income higher-educated voters, whilst also adopting a cultural nationalist narrative that appeals to many voters.”

Read the paper in full here

John McClean

This morning.

John McClean, a former Director of the Rugby Academy at UCD, has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting 23 schoolboys at Terenure College in the 1970s and 80s.

John McClean, 73,  was an English and drama teacher, who also coached rugby at the school. He took up the position as director of rugby in UCD in the 1990s.

The charges were prompted by a 2018 article from Gemma O’Doherty, who spoke to a number of Mr McClean’s victims in Village magazine.Her report claimed some gardai were aware of allegations against Mr McClean for decades.

Former rugby coach John McClean pleads guilty to indecent assault of 23 schoolboys (RTÉ)

Previously: John McClean on Broadsheet

Oh.

Boxy but good.

FIGHT!

A Campus Blueprint (UCD)

University College Dublin (UCD ) President Professor Andrew Deeks. 

This morning.

Via Irish Times:

The most expensive student accommodation rooms on the Belfield campus are set to increase from €8,815 a year to nearly €10,000 under the plans. Accommodation in the other student housing blocks would increase from €7,114 to €8,000 for the nine-month academic year.

“We’re not out to make money from the students, we’re out to put additional student residences into the market,” he said.

Prof Deeks said while students had reacted “quite emotionally” to the increase, he had discussions with the students union on Thursday “to allow us move forward in partnership”

Student reaction to rent hikes ‘emotional’, says UCD president (Irish Times)

Pic: UCD