A strategic direction

It was good to observe that the Leader of the Opposition has acknowledged that the University has made substantial progress over the years. Dr Alfred Sant was reported to have said that "the University has to accept that its main mission is to be a teaching university".

It is to be acknowledged that without students the University need not exist. However, the teaching aspect is considered to be only one of the three pillars that support a university structure.

The three pillars are teaching, research and service. Any strategy should be based on these three aspects - none of the pillars ought to be stronger or weaker than the others. Therefore the University should not focus on research, neglecting the aspect of teaching.

None can deny that any university needs to have a strong corporate identity and strategic direction. The new Rector has repeatedly mentioned that the University would seek to encourage a mentality of entrepreneurship and to try to instil such a mentality strategically in its staff and students.

Dr Sant was not very clear when speaking about research; he said that this had to emerge organically from the University's mission and had to reflect the island's realities and not personal preferences. This could mean that research could form part of a strategy involving the teaching programme where both undergraduate and graduate students participate in the department's research activities.

One would ask: Is the research carried out in biotechnology, although not of immediate relevance to the island's realities, considered to be a "personal preference"? Should the University declare a strategy whereby no one is allowed to carry out research for its own sake?

One would tend to agree with Dr Sant that at our University all staff should participate in teaching and be available for students for teaching purposes. There should be no academic or even technical staff who should be allowed to refuse to participate in teaching because they are only interested in carrying out research.

As far as part-timers are concerned, one could refer to the case of the clinical professors and lecturers at the medical school who are all part-timers. The system seems to work perhaps not optimally, but reasonably well.

The explanation is that in this way the part-time clinicians share the realities of their practice with their students. The crux of the situation, notwithstanding the difficulties that part-timers create, is that all the staff need to be dedicated to the students.

However, and this is where Dr Sant missed the point, the area that suffers the most through the use of part-timers is the research pillar of the University. Part-timers usually devote their full contribution to the University towards teaching and rarely participate fully in research activities.

Many part-timers very often consider that their main role in the University, if not their only mission, is teaching and for them our university is little more than a teaching university. It must be remembered that part-timers bring to the University a vast amount of practical experience from their daily work on which they can deliver during teaching sessions.

The service aspect too must be kept in mind. Traditionally, the professions in medicine, law and architecture, among others, have provided the country with brains to staff our hospitals, the law courts and the building industry, a major motor of the economy, not to mention parliament itself.

Other newer groups in this sector include translators, electronic engineers and Information Technology graduates to meet the changing needs of the country as a whole.

It would be very interesting to listen to the views of UMASA and the MUT, the two unions representing the University academics, on Dr Sant's contribution. Dr Sant expressed these views at the closing discussion on the University's future organised by the Mikiel Anton Vassalli Foundation at the MLP's headquarters in Hamrun.

The University is now obliged to respond to Dr Sant's views. Once he has taken the trouble to encourage the University to take certain action and threw the line for an open discussion, one should accept the challenge.

Along the discussion in process there are two points that require careful consideration. First, the University has stated that to achieve its mission it must attract and retain academics showing excellence. Few academics of repute will nowadays be attracted to the University if they are not allowed to carry out research as a very relevant aspect in their job description.

Secondly, the promotion exercise especially to associate professorship and to full professors' status puts a great emphasis on the research aspects in all their forms. Is it not time to recognise the possibility of promoting to professorial status both those who show excellence in research and also those who are excellent teachers?

This will probably meet Dr Sant's recommendation half-way and may satisfy his wish to ensure that our University shows excellence in teaching. One has to try to reach a national consensus on our strategy for tertiary education as much as possible since nobody would like to see a repetition of what happened in the not too distant past.

At that time our University, in its endeavour to obey the Labour Government dictum to carry out the teaching of utilitarian subjects only as the University's sole role, albeit with excellence, nearly sent the University into oblivion.