Academics have condemned plans to end staff elections for an Irish university’s governing body, and for the institution to select appointees itself in future.

Under Ireland’s new Higher Education Authority Act, Maynooth University (MU) was tasked with establishing a new governing authority (GA) of 19 members, down from 33.

The institution confirmed that it had opted to select five internal members of the authority, scrapping the elections that had been held previously, on the basis that “a confidential selection process facilitates and encourages a broader range of staff to put themselves forward for membership”.

But the move was criticised by the Irish Federation of University Teachers, which said that the restoration of staff elections was “essential”. General secretary Frank Jones said it was regrettable that senior management intended to depart from the “long-standing practice of democratic elections”.

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“Instead, they are seeking to implement a process whereby, with the assistance of a private recruitment firm, they would assume the responsibility of handpicking the staff representatives,” he said.

“This deviation from established democratic norms is concerning, especially when issues of poor governance are being debated elsewhere at present.”

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In a letter to Simon Harris, the higher education minister, Mr Jones said the new selection method meant that Maynooth’s president, Eeva Leinonen, would be involved in the selection of a majority of the body responsible for internal performance management, including her own performance.

Professor Leinonen is a member of the governing body and, in addition to the five internal members, Maynooth will also select six of the nine external members, plus an external chair. The rest of the panel is made up of three members nominated by Mr Harris and three student union representatives.

 “This, by any standard, is really poor governance,” writes Mr Jones in the letter to the minister. “IFUT members strongly maintain it is not for university management to select, or to arrange to have selected, staff members for the university’s oversight body.” 

In a statement, Maynooth said that under the new act universities could choose whether they wished to elect or select their internal governing body members, and that institutions had adopted a variety of approaches. Maynooth said that the framework for establishing the new panel had been approved by Mr Harris.

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“Elections in MU have traditionally resulted in a small number of candidates standing for election, and in some categories of staff, elections have not been held at all as only one candidate has put their name forward. It is more challenging to reflect diversity considerations when GA members are being identified through different selection/election routes. GA has established a nominations committee which will be able to assess diversity across the 12 members who it is responsible for nominating for appointment to the next GA,” a Maynooth spokeswoman said.

“Additionally, the selection process will enable the MU GA to assess all candidates in the same manner against the skills, experience and competency Framework. With more candidates in the mix from a variety of backgrounds and with Irish language representation, a common competency assessment framework, as well as a smaller board size overall, the GA determined that a selection process would facilitate achievement of a board with the highest possible standards for good governance. Selecting the internal members will allow for a consistent approach in terms of how the five internal and six external members, as well as the chair, will be appointed, in accordance with best practice across the public sector.”

The spokeswoman said that the selection process had been delegated to a subcommittee of the governing authority, comprised of internal and external members.

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com