Martin Henry/ColumnistToday is Research and Technology Day at the University of Technology (UTech).
For the last couple of years the university has been putting on public display some of its research work during its anniversary week.
Unfortunately, some of the
internal problems of the institution have also gone on public display.
Last Friday, the students were at the gate again after having waited out of patience for their progress reports. While UTech struggles to find its research
footing, the institution should work even harder to improve its human and labour relations.
Protest each year
The College of Arts, Science and Technology (CAST) was granted university status in 1995 and has managed since then to have at least one major news-making protest each year, with academic and administrative staff and students taking turns.
Ironically, the university runs a faculty of business and management, its largest with 40 per cent of its students. The skills of human resource management, industrial relations, negotiation, labour law, and managing organisations and systems are taught to students who must get out there and run the organisations of the country, and the world.
Then there is the school of computing whose staff and students are in the business of designing and running data processing systems.
The root of the students'
displeasure, we are told by the media, is a computerised student data administration system that isn't delivering.
UTech's school of computing is probably putting out more degreed graduates in the field than any place else in the English-speaking Caribbean. These are the
people who run IT systems in organisations.
On Sunday, the press carried an advertisement for UTech's Job Placement Day, Thursday, April 7.
Did you see the range of technical degrees, diplomas and certificates that the institution is marketing to employers? I counted 52.
Research tradition
I have always felt that the new University of Technology has its best opportunities for research in tackling the practical problems of the Jamaican economy, especially for medium and small enterprises which can't buy pre-packaged technological solutions developed overseas, like the university's own system for integrated student administration.
A strong research tradition needs more than adequate financial
backing, training, and staff with advanced degrees. It needs more than institutional arrangements for research and graduate studies.
Somebody will say I didn't need to bring up the matter of the student protest and industrial relations problems alongside Research and Technology Day.
But there are powerful links: research thrives in a collegial atmosphere where systems work and people have freedom and
security and time to explore and to reflect. Chronic turbulence
undermines research capacity.
Student recruitment is a
powerful factor in building a strong research base.
The CAST student trained by show and tell for a hands-on
diploma is not necessarily the same person who is going to make a strong research student.
There is the old criticism, itself a subject for research, that the CAST/UTech graduate has great hands-on technical competence, but the UWI graduate is the better thinker/problem-solver.
Recruitment strategy
So far, UTech has been shying away from aggressively competing for the highest performers in CXC with strong and broad academic foundations as opposed to what the HEART Trust/NTA would describe as technical/vocational competencies.
But these are the people who are going to make the best graduate students and research assistants in any field. A serious university should aim for no less than a third of its student population to be this kind of material.
The marketability of the UTech degree in a tight job market and the comparatively low costs of high-cost technical degrees are powerful drawing cards yet to be seriously played by the institution in its recruitment strategy. UTech trains people to run marketing in other enterprises.
Progress review
At 6:00 p.m. today, Dr. Ellen Hazelkorn, dean of the faculty of applied arts at the Dublin Institute of Technology in Ireland, will speak on this theme of 'Nurturing Research in New Universities' at UTech's innovative Technology Innovation Centre.
The university charter names the Governor-General of Jamaica
as 'visitor' with the power to
periodically examine the progress of the university.
The charter also provides for a septennial review. The first such review is now struggling to get off the ground three years late.
The public, which supports the university in so many ways, should have a major interest in the research output of the university and on its progress over its first
turbulent decade.
Martin Henry is a
communication specialist.
