University of Galway is ‘short on academics, but has too many managers’, say worried staff

A former professor of archaeology at University of Galway has criticised the college over the number of unfilled posts in humanities and claimed there was “management bloat” at the institution.

Prof John Waddell also said a recent unofficial poll of staff identified a “terrible distrust of bureaucracy” and unhappiness in the university.

The University of Galway has denied his claims.

The unofficial confidential survey, which drew responses from 153 members of staff, identified concerns about excessive workload.

Conducted by Deirdre Curran, vice-dean for equality, diversity and inclusion, it highlighted workload, job insecurity, “incivility” and a belief that students were suffering.

The university has almost 3,000 staff and more than 19,000 students.

Almost half (46pc) of the staff who replied said they were owed money in unclaimed or rejected expenses; 53pc felt like they belonged in the university but 47pc said they did not.

Respondents identified “top-down management”, lack of consultation, “constant juggling” and “feeling undervalued”.

Positive factors cited included the opportunity to teach and conduct research, flexibility, variety of work and the opportunity to support students.

Asked to name one factor they would like to see changed, respondents said “less bureaucracy” and “less precarity in contracts”.

They also identified a revised promotion scheme and a need to “put the student back at the centre” as priorities.

They listed a need to “trust staff” and “listen”, “deal with bad behaviour” and ensure “better leadership” and “less public relations”. They referred to a “disconnect” with management.

Dr Curran said she conducted the survey in her own time after an “all-staff meeting” with the university president in which she raised frustrations. .

Dr Curran said she was contacted by colleagues after she spoke at the meeting and felt she had “struck a nerve”.

More than 80pc of the 153 who responded to her survey have worked for more than five years at the university.

Acknowledging the survey was a “snapshot”, Dr Curran said she presented the findings to university president Prof Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh.

Prof Waddell said he was not surprised by the survey findings.

“Many decisions about academic appointments, financial matters and course offerings are now more centrally controlled and are taken by management and not by academic bodies or committees,” he said.

“Universities do need good administrators, but the notable growth in management numbers in recent years has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in permanent academic staff. In Galway, management bloat has been accompanied by an increase in some subject areas of numbers of teaching-only/part-time staff and a corresponding failure to fill teaching and research positions.

“Undoubtedly universities in Ireland are under-funded, but it also appears that their priority has been to spend more on tiers of management and less on teaching and research personnel.”

University of Galway said it was “rated independently by Ibec as one of the top 100 employers in Ireland for leading in wellbeing”.

“A survey open to all staff found widespread support for our value of respect, with almost two-thirds of those who replied feeling that we have made some or significant progress in that regard over the last five years,” a university spokesman said.

“This is in stark contrast to responses from a selected, ad hoc group of 150 people — 4pc of our staff — about half of whom raised issues over expenses.

“We operate an appropriately robust policy and process for approving expenses, as the taxpayer would rightly anticipate and as we should do when responsible for public funds. The claim of significant academic vacancies simply isn’t true. All of the disciplines referred to have favourable staff-student ratios, and French and Spanish in particular have had new posts created in the last year.

“In a resource-constrained environment, University of Galway allocates lecturing posts to discipline areas based on student numbers, to best serve the needs of our students,” the spokesman said, saying 23 new posts had been approved.

“An increase in core funding by Government in the last two budgets has been eroded by new public sector pay awards.”

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