The new interim president of TU Dublin has written to staff outlining his immediate priorities for the college.
John Doran, who is Dean of the Faculty of Sciences and Health, has been appointed interim president after Professor David FitzPatrick announced two weeks ago that he was resigning effective from the end of May.
Professor Doran told staff it was an honour to have been appointed and that his immediate priority was the drafting of a financial recovery plan.
“My UET colleagues and I will be working with teams across the University and with the Governing Body to prepare a plan for submission to the HEA before the end of next month. This will build on the considerable work already undertaken by many colleagues across the University, including our Finance team,” he wrote.
Prof FitzPatrick’s resignation announcement followed a decision by the Higher Education Authority to institute a special review of the technological university’s performance in managing and controlling its finances following the accumulation of a deficit of €8.6 million.
A team from the HEA is due to conduct a site visit at the university next week as part of its review.
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A month ago academic staff at the college expressed no confidence in leadership there. At a trade union meeting they backed a motion expressing “no confidence in the President of TU Dublin to ensure the University’s viability and sustainability”, and a second motion expressing “no confidence in the President of TU Dublin, Deputy President and Registrar and Chief Operations Officer to lead the university”.
The university’s deficit has been attributed to a fall in student enrolment and to rising costs.
Prof Doran told staff that ‘Town Hall’ meetings that had been planned for next week were being postponed until next month “as the completion of our Financial Recovery Plan will dominate the coming period”.
Two weeks ago the then president of TU Dublin Prof FitzPatrick resigned and said he would leave at the end of May to take up a new position as interim provost of the university of Nottingham in Malaysia.
In a letter to staff he said he recognised “that this is an appropriate time for new energy to take the reins” and his decision was part of “a long held ambition to live and work abroad in an International education setting”.
