Madam, – In the course of an Opinion column (June 10th) about the potential impact of the Saville inquiry into the Bloody Sunday shootings, Fionnuala O’Connor made a bizarre comment about the Magee campus of the University of Ulster, which is based in Derry, and reference to Prof John Hume.
I was surprised and disappointed to see the sentence below: “Almost half a century after Hume campaigned for the North’s second university to be sited in Derry, it must make do with an out-station from the University of Ulster” .
Without prejudice to the opinions she expressed in the rest of her piece and conscious of the profound sensitivities surrounding the publication of the Saville report, I write to defend the reputation of the staff, students and alumni of Magee.
What is meant by “out-station” I cannot presume to guess, but it is clear that the term is meant to disparage.
Our Magee campus is a thriving campus which, in the 26 years it has been part of the University of Ulster, has grown from just 270 students to over 3,500 today, with further plans for expansion to over 5,500 students. That expansion plan is rooted in efforts to boost the economy of the north-west of Ireland and also in developing the STEM skills (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) which the Stormont Executive has identified are essential for the Northern Ireland economy.
Magee has a highly acclaimed Intelligent Systems Research Centre and the campus has the state-of-the art Foyle Arts Centre which nurtures acting, design, musical and dance talent as well as developing creative technologies skills. Magee has acquired a strong reputation in the field of conflict resolution, with INCORE a respected joint venture with the United Nations University applying the lessons learnt from the Northern Ireland peace process to help other conflict zones around the world.
The Graduate School of Professional Legal Education provides places for students wishing to obtain the Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice which in turn leads to a solicitor qualification. The university has also recently been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in American Studies which will be located in Magee where Ulster is building links to leading US universities.
Ulster has invested in a Learning Resource Centre. There is also a modern sports centre.
All this investment and our plans for further expansion are hardly the actions of a university which regards Magee as an “out-station”. The “out-station” reference carries the implication that the work carried on at Magee by our distinguished cohort of international scientists, jurists, psychologists, historians, linguists and more, is of little or no account, and that decisions to study at Magee made since 1984 by tens of thousands of students from Northern Ireland and the Republic are in some sense flawed, and their value of their degrees diminished.
There are few Nobel Laureates active in the Irish university world. The University of Ulster has two: Prof John Hume has been an honoured member of the University of Ulster staff at Magee for over a decade, and has worked tirelessly to raise the international profile of the city and its university. No other campus on this island has in that time attracted the stature of international speakers whom he has brought to Magee, thus adding to its prestige at home and abroad.
The University of Ulster rejects the criticism of your columnist, and rejects the cast of mind that imagines that by denigrating the achievements of the Magee community the cause of Derry is somehow advanced. – Yours, etc,