A confidential circular about plans to reform University of Galway’s arts degree programme leaked to the national press last week, has caused consternation to the college’s senior management.
In correspondence seen by the Advertiser, the university’s Executive Dean, Professor Rebecca Braun, wrote a strongly worded email to all departmental heads this week, complaining that a confidential document circulated with college members last Tuesday “was passed to the Irish Times with near immediate effect last week”.
“This was a very serious breach of data that was clearly marked as confidential. It has resulted in significant reputational damage to the University in respect of its offerings in Arts & Social Sciences,” wrote Prof Braun. “The fact that the leak happened, also caused considerable upset across our own community,” she added, in a substantial missive which went out to a mailing list of senior academics and managers.
The Board of University of Galway will meet today, Thursday, March 5, to discuss the report, and the impact of its contents made public. The college’s president, David Burn, has been corresponding with other Irish university heads to assure them that Galway is not cancelling its arts programme, and it is understood there has been official correspondence with the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (AHSS ) arm of the Irish Universities Association, which represents the top seven Arts departments in the Republic of Ireland.
Last Friday, the Irish Times reported that falling interest in pursuing an Arts degree was prompting University of Galway to consider scrapping or reforming its general arts programme, as students were more interested in courses with ‘direct routes to employment’, according to an internal report.
The report also outlined that applications to its general arts degree – GY101 in CAO speak – had been falling since 2011, with a 35 per cent drop from 749 registrations in 2019, to 491 in 2024. This decline had prompted managers to throttle down the number of admissions to selected arts courses, thus ensuring CAO points requirements remained high, as the Central Applications Office applies a supply and demand ‘price’ model to points allocations for university degrees.
“Nobody knows who leaked the report but there is a lot of staff chatter about it this week,” one UG academic, who does not work in the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies, told the Advertiser. “Some are even saying management might have leaked it themselves, just to get the ball rolling, but sure who knows in this place…?”
Prof Braun’s long email, however, points out that “The media ran stories around cuts, closure, paths to employment versus the life of the mind: these are angles from elsewhere that do not capture what we are engaging in through our process.”
A college spokesman acknowledged the Dean’s message to senior staff, adding that college transformation was always on the Board’s agenda this week, and that the initially leaked report was an “opportunity for people to come up with ideas”.
“Of course [our] energies are better off being focused on providing the best future for Arts education,” he said, in response to whether there would be an investigation into the source of the leak which exercised Prof Braun to outline a dent in the reputation of the 181-year-old university.
“University of Galway is exploring options for a range of new and exciting courses in arts, conscious of both changing demographics and students’ interests. This is an early stage consultation, in line with best practice in higher education, where we ask our academics to reimagine how arts courses are offered,” said a spokesman.
“It should be emphasised that no changes are being introduced at this time, and any student who is interested in the arts and the pursuit of academic inquiry or interest should look no further than University of Galway.”
