NUI Galway has achieved reform without rancour, and its future is increasingly bright, writes John Downes

One line in a recent letter from the president of NUI Galway, Dr Iognáid Ó Muircheartaigh, to the Minister for Education Mary Hanafin, tells a lot about the university. In the letter, Ó Muircheartaigh points out that the college has quietly undergone significant restructuring in recent years.

This includes semesterisation of its undergraduate academic programmes, amalgamation of departments into larger academic units, and integration of teaching and research functions within and across departments, he says.

In other universities, such reforms have provoked strong resistance from academics, who have warned about the dangers of introducing ill-thought-out, hastily implemented restructuring programmes which are imposed from above.

But Ó Muircheartaigh states in the letter that the reforms "have been achieved, without rancour, and in a collegiate spirit," at NUI Galway.

Sitting in his presidential office, he explains what he believes are the reasons for this. "What we tend to do here is to try and agree the strategy - we agree where we want to go - and then we try to implement it by consent," he says. "We have done many of these things much more quickly than those who try to impose [reform]. And perhaps we don't get the publicity for it because there is no rancour, because there is no row. It's not just that we're going to keep talking about things forever and maybe never get around to do it . . . we are committed to change. And there is a buy-in by the university. It's not being imposed on them."

NUI Galway is currently in the throes of huge change. A stroll around its campus reveals as much: significant swathes of the university grounds are a building site at the moment.

While old buildings like the famous quadrangle remain, many new developments such as the Digital Enterprise Research Institute and the prestigious National Centre for Biomedical Engineering Science have also been built.

In fact, the university is about half-way through a €250 million five-year strategic plan which, when completed, will radically transform the campus itself, Ó Muircheartaigh says enthusiastically. Eventually, it will see a reorientation of the college grounds to create a more student-friendly "riverside campus".

The so-called "old campus" will be to the left of a new entrance, with other major new buildings such as engineering and business to the right, says Ó Muircheartaigh. At the centre of all this will be a major new €35 million student sports and cultural centre.

NUI Galway has been, and remains, a popular choice with many Leaving Cert students applying through the CAO.

Partly as a result of its location, not far from the city centre, the college undeniably benefits from the public perception of Galway as a relaxed, friendly town. One senior academic, formerly a businessman in Dublin, confides that he moved to Galway partly for the change in lifestyle this permitted.

Interestingly, the private Galway grind school, Yeats College, was the top feeder school for the university last year, indicating that the boom in such schools is spreading beyond Dublin.

But Galway is not like other cities. There is a creativity and energy about it seldom seen elsewhere.

The contribution from some 12,000 full-time university students living and working in the area is undoubtedly a key factor: during the academic year, students comprise 15 per cent of the city's population.

But the university also lays claim to strong high-tech, medical and scientific credentials, something the forthcoming completion of its major new engineering facility, at a cost of some €60 million, will further underline.

Indeed, Ó Muircheartaigh believes the university has shown it can seriously compete for research funding with other universities, through both the Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions and Science Foundation Ireland.

Much has been made in Government circles of the need for universities to find alternative sources of revenue, a fact backed up by the recent OECD review of the third level education system here.

Ó Muircheartaigh is proud - with some justification - of his university's fund-raising activities in this regard. The Galway University Foundation, set up specifically to do this, has already secured €38 million of its €50 million target, with some €18 million of this coming from Chuck Feeney's Atlantic Philanthropies organisation.

As is the case throughout the third-level sector, the university is also placing an increased emphasis on attracting international students, he says.

This means the campus population will become more international over the coming years. Ó'Muircheartaigh says the plan is to increase the percentage of international students from around 6 per cent to 10 per cent.

The increased reliance on international students, who pay much higher fees than their Irish counterparts, will allow the money raised to be reinvested in the university's facilities and infrastructure, he adds.

By the time its five-year programme of redevelopment is completed in 2008, NUI Galway seems well placed to meet the many challenges facing the Irish third-level sector in the 21st century.

The university recently had a visit from a renowned graduate, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, Archbishop of Durban in South Africa, whose name has been mentioned as a possible candidate for the papacy.

Naturally, Ó Muircheartaigh says the college would be honoured if a former student was elevated in such a way.

If its president's ambitious plans for the university are anything to go by, Cardinal Napier would certainly be in excellent company.