Dr Pat Kelleher retires as director of Cork Institute of Technology having overseen a period of major expansion and soaring student numbers. He tells Barry Roche about 40 years of highs and lows.

As he settles back to enjoy his retirement, former Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) director Dr Pat Kelleher can survey a vastly changed institution from the one he joined over 40 years ago. With almost €150 million worth of new facilities scheduled to come on stream in the next two years, expansion continues apace.

Student numbers have increased from 500 full-time and 100 part-time students in 1974 to some 6,300 full-time students, 3,500 night students and a further 2,700 on block release. Staff numbers now total over 1,000.

With some 21 departments on the main campus at Bishopstown, CIT also comprises the Crawford College of Art and Design, the soon-to-be-opened National Maritime College in Ringaskiddy and the Cork School of Music, the contract for which, Dr Kelleher is confident, will shortly be signed.

"We offer a wide range of courses here in CIT - we have a wide number of engineering courses; electronic, civil, mechanical automobile and marine; and they account for about 40 per cent of our students with science, including computer science, accounting for a further 20-25 per cent," says Kelleher.

Business studies and humanities, including both the School of Music and the Crawford College of Art and Design, account for the remaining 35 per cent of students, with business studies in particular proving increasingly popular with school-leavers.

"Young people are voting with their feet and the biggest numbers are going into business studies," he observes.

Under Dr Kelleher's direction, CIT has developed closer ties with industry, particularly the cluster of state-of-the-art companies that have settled in Cork in the last 10 to 15 years. These companies have successfully drawn on CIT graduates to fill skilled positions.

The list of companies with whom CIT has liaised reads like a "who's who" of major multinationals. Computer and electronics companies such as Apple and EMC, pharmaceutical companies like Novartis, Pfizer and GSK, along with healthcare and medical devices companies like Johnson & Johnson, Stryker and Boston Scientific have all worked closely with CIT.

"If a company is planning to develop a product in two or three years' time and they come to us and say 'we need people coming out of here in three years' time with particular skills necessary to make that product', we can modify our courses to equip people with those skills and we've done \ with many companies in electronics, medical devices and pharmaceuticals," he says.

But Dr Kelleher hasn't just steered CIT towards producing young graduates for local industry; he has also worked towards helping those already working to expand their skills and promotion prospects by ensuring the college provides an ambitious range of night courses.

"People talk about access to education and special access programmes but that doesn't just apply to people who are 18 years old; it's also relevant for people who are, say, 35 and stuck in a dead end job - continuing education here has helped people improve their skills, make them more attractive to employers and helped them get new jobs or get promotion." He agrees that "the walls may not be as high" at ITs as at universities for those coming from backgrounds with no history of third-level attendance, but he also believes that the "ladder of opportunity" system (two-year certificate, three-year degree, four-year honours degree) may be a more attractive option for some people than an outright commitment to a four-year degree.

That incremental system of award has enabled CIT to work closely with the larger and older University College Cork (UCC). In biomedical sciences, for instance, CIT students do their first three years at CIT before switching to UCC to do their final two years.

"Some of the UCC students come here for some of their modules - the degree is awarded by UCC but it's jointly taught. There have been differences with UCC in the past but we have good relations - we try and market the institutes together outside of Cork - we have a whole series of relationships that are very positive but I personally think we've not gone far enough - there are comparative strengths that we could build on more.

"Looking at it in 10 or 20 years' time in terms of what's best for Cork - and you need a very strong provincial centre that can harness all its strengths to compete with the massive conurbation that's Dublin - there has to be much more fundamental co-operation; perhaps sharing staff, perhaps sharing skills, perhaps developing courses on a joint basis."

While that's all in the future, the present is very much testament to Dr Kelleher's management of the college. Back in the late 1980s, money from the Department of Education was tight and plans for a new library and state-of-the-art laboratories had to be put on hold. It was, he admits, a low time in his career.

But he has survived those lows and while the new library building has won several awards for its design, he is equally proud of the massive €15 million refurbishment programme undertaken in the main building, which has seen labs and workshops completely overhauled. "They've all been refurbished and are as good any in the country," he says.

Work is currently under way on three new buildings on the campus - a €7 million administration block, an €8.5 million students' centre and a €16 million tourism and catering block. Add in the €50 million invested in the National Maritime College and the provision of a new €60 million Cork School of Music, and it's clear that CIT is still going places.

Looking back over his time at CIT, the soft-spoken Dr Kelleher hopes that students found it a caring place. He is conscious of how vulnerable students can be when they are brimming with hopes and ambitions, yet he credits them with providing him with some of the highlights of his 43-year career as a teacher and educationalist.

"I've enjoyed my time here - there's the fun of constant change and if you deal with young people - and they weren't all young people - you do stay young at heart and you do open doors for people. As I say, I've enjoyed my time here, but there's a time when you let go.