Sir, – Prof Darryl Jones's letter (October 10th) in response to my opinion piece ("Trinity has to first address its internal problems in order to improve its international standing", October 8th) misrepresents my central point – which is not that there have been few promotions, but that the university's own oversight system has found the promotion process to be unfair, and nothing has been done to change it. Comparing achievement across diverse domains is certainly complex, and that is exactly why criteria for doing so must be both clear and known. Even after the college visitors' review of the 2012 senior promotions process, neither they, nor I, have any clue what criteria were used; and members of that committee are either unwilling or unable to describe them.
Good governance is not about always agreeing with others on a committee, but it is about being able to explain and stand over the basis on which decisions are made. Good performance management systems provide clear feedback to staff on how to improve their performance.
Prof Jones’s letter gives no comfort that there is a willingness to instil fairness and transparency in the governance of our university; without that, our staff – particularly junior staff – will seek more equitable employment elsewhere and our standing will continue to decline. Some of us are determined to change that. – Yours, etc,
MAC MacLACHLAN,
Professor of Global Health,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.