Madam, - Prof John Kelly (Opinion, October 1st) describes research as no more than a "vital adjunct" to university teaching. Such a statement represents a blow aimed at the very heart of what university teaching should be.
By treating teaching and research as distinct and competing imperatives, Prof Kelly fails to acknowledge that the single most precious quality of university teaching is that it is carried out by people actively engaged in research. Treating research as any sort of "adjunct" to teaching destroys the creative basis for teaching itself.
In place of the Scylla of Dr Edward Walsh's favoured "research" universities, Prof Kelly offers the Charybdis of "teaching" universities.
The "traditional ethos" of our universities cannot be defended unless this tendency to estrange teaching and research is checked. Third-level students themselves have a fundamental right to be taught by people at the cutting edge of their field, contributing to the very definition of their field rather than merely retailing well-established information and skills.
Whenever teaching loses touch with research, students cease to be members of anything that deserves to be called a university, no matter what the large sign outside the front gate may declare. - Yours, etc.
Dr CONRAD BRUNSTRÖM,
NUI, Maynooth,
Co Kildare.