Introducing the academic tenure blog backup

The following entries are from a blog that I ran on a "permanent guest" basis for 4 years.

It may or may not be available on its original site at the time you are reading this, so I have backed it up here

I am no longer convinced that "academic tenure" is the correct way for the state to get involved in scholarship. Conversely, I am absolutely convinced that the assault on  "academic tenure" in Ireland needed to be fought. Had we not fought, the result would be a debasement of the activities of teaching, learning and research to the point that they were to become subject to the whim of globalized corporatism. Oh, and literally thousands of university staff at all levels were going to be subject to summary dismissal without cause - exactly what happened to me.

It is my view that developments in online education allow sophisticated education, including technical education, to be done at the highest level in an environment which removes the necessity of the type of university administrator we saw gaining huge power in Ireland. The Irish state now has to justify its expenditure of taxpayers' money in an inefficient, corrupt and outmoded system.

At a higher level - one that the Irish state will likely as not never reach -  states as political entities have historically domesticated scholars by offering them security like "academic tenure". Given that the bulk of the pedagogy will now come from elite US institutions, a new relationship between state and scholar must be attempted