DIFFICULT, challenging but extremely exciting - that's how Dr Ellen Hazlekorn, the recently appointed director of the DIT's faculty of applied arts, describes her new job.
Hazlekorn, a social scientist and lecturer on the DIT's journalism and communications courses, has come to the job visa a short stint as acting director of DIT Aungier Street following the untimely death of Jim Hickey earlier this year. She is one of six newly appointed faculty - directors and the only woman.
Over the coming months, the work of these directors will be to implement the DIT's plan to restructure on a faculty rather than a college basis, she says.
The roots of the Dublin Institute of Technology are in the establishment of a number of technical colleges in Dublin in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1978, the DIT was established by the City of Dublin VEC to co ordinate the work of its six technical colleges - Kevin Street, Bolton Street, Cathal Brugha Street, Rathmines College of Commerce, the School of Music (Chatham Street) and the College of Marketing and Design (Mountjoy Square). Since then, the DIT has gained autonomy - under the 1993 DIT Act - and grown to become the largest third level institution in the state.
In an innovative (if controversial) move, the old constituent college structure has recently been abandoned in favour of an institution based on faculties of science, the built environment, engineering, business, tourism and food, and applied arts. However, according to Hazlekorn, these faculties have yet to be "cut and dried".
She explains: "The faculty directors have been appointed, but my job - now is to consult with those people who are likely too be in the faculty of applied arts and to disco with them the shape of the faculty. It's about team building and looking at the best way to go forward.
"From the applied arts point of view, there are departments in all the former colleges that could come into this faculty."
To an outsider such restructuring appears a daunting prospect, but Hazlekorn is adamant that she and her colleagues have been presented with a unique opportunity. "The faculty of applied arts has the most enormous potential - it is the most exciting development in Irish third level education in years," she insists.
"It will be unique and will combine a wide range of programmes not seen elsewhere: music and drama, art and design, media and communications, languages, social science and legal studies."
Change, she admits, can be problematic. "Change is difficult both to bring about and to cope with and it can take a long time to happen. But it is also challenging and exciting and opens up new possibilities.
"Educational institutions need to be continually reappraising their courses. I hope to get an agreed shape on the faculty within a short period of time, so that we can move on and examine our programmes and look at a range of issues that affect us as educators."
While in the short term students will remain unaffected by the current deliberations, Hazlekorn forecasts that they will soon be in a position to appreciate "the exciting new potential of courses".
Born in the US and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Hazlekorn gained her PhD at the University of Kent, England, came to Ireland on a research project in the early 1970s and opted to make it her home. Married to Eric Byrne, the Democratic Left TD for Dublin South Central, Hazlekorn began her teaching career at the Rathmines College of Commerce, back in 1979. She has written extensively on Irish politics and last year produced a Transition Year textbook, A Guide for Irish Politics (published by the Educational Company of Ireland) with Tony Murray.
Although her first loves are reading and research, her new appointment is a privilege, she says.
The DIT's first director of applied arts is a firm supporter of modularisation and sees it as a means of making third level education more accessible to second chance students. "The CAO system locks a lot of people out of education. We are anxious to look at the possibilities for life long learning and ensure that people can enter third level at later stages in their lives."
Flexible, modularised degree programmes facilitate those adults who wish to return to education but have other commitments in their lives, including work and family, she says. "I would like to move towards a modularised degree in applied arts, which could offer a wide range of subjects - not to replace the other courses, rather to add a new programme," she suggests.
However, it is vital that great care be taken with the range of modules on offer, she adds. "I would hate to see a pick and mix programme, which could be a disaster. The courses must be carefully chosen so that they inter relate.
Similarly, she envisages the possibility of inter faculty, modularised programmes. "There are huge possibilities in and between the faculties," she says. "It could, for example, be possible for someone doing art and design to add an electronics module, or for a student of industrial design to link with engineering."
In the long term, both students and staff will benefit from the new structures, she says. "They offer us a great opportunity to be involved in a wide range of programmes," she says, and to avoid being locked into a narrow range of activities."
