When you go to interview a university head, you don't expect to start by talking about foreign adoptions. But that's Prof Ferdinand von Prondzynski, for you. DCU's new president is full of surprises.
Sebastian, his eldest son, now aged 11, he says, was adopted in Ecuador in the early 1980s. When the von Prondzynski's saw the abandoned infant, it was love at first sight. A harrowing year ensued in which they struggled to obtain a foreign adoption.
Mrs von Prondzynski, aka the novelist Heather Ingman, has written about the experience in her partly autobiographical novel, Sara, which was published by Poolbeg.
The couple met back in 1980 when they both started lecturing in TCD. Von Prondzynski's background is German/Polish. His family moved to Co Westmeath to farm in the early 1960s. A former TCD fellow and lecturer in industrial relations, labour law and human resource management in Trinity's school of business studies, von Prondzynski comes to DCU from the University of Hull. Most recently, he was dean of the faculty of social sciences there.
The family is delighted to be back in Ireland, which they have always regarded as home. However, they have shared the dilemma faced by most academics wishing to return to Ireland - how to get back into a property market, which is spinning out of control. In 1990, the von Prondzynskis sold a relatively small estate house in Dublin's Castlenock and bought a rather grander Victorian dwelling in Beverley, near Hull. Today, the proceeds of the sale of the English property would cover only half the repurchase price of the house in suburban Dublin, he says.
Fortunately, DCU is in the position to provide on-campus accommodation for the family - a four bedroomed, cut-stone dwelling with a garden of one acre, only yards away from the president's office. The former home to a succession of principals of Albert College, the president's new house, has in recent years provided DCU with overflow office space.
Other institutions - most noticeably TCD and UCD - have long supplied their heads with on-campus accommodation. It will, however, be the first time a DCU president has lived in the college. "Living on campus will mean that I can identify with the university more closely and play an active role in the local community more easily," he says.
Von Prondzynski's immediate goal at DCU is to draw up a new strategic plan. "We need a unifying strategic goal, a unifying theme, which will tie in everything we do," he says. Even before he took up his post, he was in touch with staff and the governing authority to consider three possible scenarios for the future of DCU. "They're tools for discussion," von Prondzynski stresses. "They're not stand-alone options." The issues under consideration comprise whether DCU should become more like the traditional universities, the effects of globalisation, and modernisation.
"I'm not an advocate of DCU turning into an old style university but that doesn't mean that there aren't aspects of traditional higher education that we wouldn't want to take on." Globalisation, meanwhile, is an issue that all third-level institutions in this State will have to consider. "Universities all over the world are coming together to form strategic alliances - many of them for the purposes of research, but some are offering courses in other countries as well. We already have MIT's MediaLab here. Other universities will arrive in Ireland. We can't ignore it and, at the very least, we need a view on it." Modernisation presents the third-level sector with one of its greatest challenges.
"Traditional patterns of third-level education are changing very quickly and in some cases are being eroded to the point where they will become non-viable," von Prondzynski argues. "Arts and humanities faculties, for example, are based on the medieval universities, while the boundaries in the sciences are based on decisions that were made arbitrarily in the 19th century - yet, we're still organising along those lines."
Increasingly, though, individual disciplines are no longer critical - interdisciplinary studies are the way forward. The universities, he says, can no longer continue to organise themselves into separate units based on original disciplines. Take communications studies, for example. This involves a range of disciplines, including philosophy, law and electronic engineering. Similarly, biotechnology involves biology, genetics and a number of other sciences.
Interdisciplinary work can be difficult, when people defend their own patches. Faculties and schools can be jealous of their autonomy. However, patterns of demand for courses can change quickly. Universities need to be flexible and have the ability to respond quickly. "Universities with cumbersome bureaucracies, dealing with new courses, will be in trouble. The stability of undergraduate courses doesn't exist in the same way as it did in the past."
Traditionally, DCU has responded well to change. "We need to retain that edge," he says.
Von Prondzynski is a lawyer heading what is essentially a technological institution - one which has no law school. Is this a problem? Definitely not. Dscipline is irrelevant. "What matters is that you have an understanding of the policy elements which drive higher education as a whole, and that you can enable DCU to thrive within it."
"DCU," von Prondzynski asserts, "is a fantastic institution. It doesn't carry all the baggage that traditional universities have. It's flexible and has very able people. As president of DCU I have much greater influence than my counterpart at the University of Hull."
In order to succeed, though, von Prondzynski will have to get everyone participating. He is, he says, a great believer in delegation and devolved authority. "I could draw up a strategic plan single-handed - but it would be fruitless. Everyone has to be part of the process. You can't have topdown commands - that would be terrible. People have to feel they have a say. You need to delegate and devolve responsibility. The main task of a university president is to play a key role in co-ordinating strategic development and to represent the college outside."
