From Education to Brexit, Pay Check to Student Fees – QRTheScoop speaks with Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Greer.

scott duffield

Following Professor Ian Greer’s first academic semester in the position The Scoop sat down to speak with him, in what ended up being a 50-minute interview about student issues, politics, university finances and education. This is the Vice-Chancellor's first interview with any student media at Queen's University Belfast.

The Vice-Chancellor was not opposed to doing more to interact with the student body, through a mixture of formal and informal events. He “actually welcomes more informal events” using our interview as an example of an open, non-scripted, discussion on student concerns.

Moving onto the academic year restructure Prof Ian Greer said he “can’t comment on the precise thinking behind it” as the decision was made before he took position, but it “should, if all works to plan, become more efficient. The concern for us, or for me coming in at a time of change, is the change itself - as that creates uncertainty.”

Straight out of the final QUB Senate of 2018, and the ratification of two new part-time officer positions in the Student’s Union, Greer said he welcomed the positions and “in general [Senate] were supportive as it was a democratic decision within the student’s union”. He continued that alongside the Part-Time Irish Language Officer “we would welcome other minority languages being covered at Queen’s”, due to the university striving towards it’s 20% international student quota, as earmarked by ' Vision 2020', ensuring that the university was inclusive of everyone.

Queen’s University Belfast Student’s Union is the only SU in the UK and Ireland that does not have autonomy. Speaking about whether he would support autonomy for the SU, Greer said it was a “contentious issue … and we’ll certainly have a dialogue with [the SU] to see how they want to go and they want to continue”. He continued saying he aims to have the “right student’s union for Queen’s”.

Moving onto politics and asked about the impact Brexit will have on the university, particularly looking at much sought-after Erasmus programme, the Vice-Chancellor said “we are absolutely committed” to protecting essential university services and programmes. When asked for clarification on the university’s Brexit stance, Greeer stated that “our job isn’t to take a firm stance, but to set out what the problems are, and if we have Brexit, help identify how we might overcome them, because we don’t want to lose these issues of funding and mobility." He continued, “we have got signals from government that they are sympathetic to [university] issues and will look to solutions but at present, haven’t put firm answers to all of these things on the table”. Our most recent podcast on Brexit can be found here.

To listen to the full interview, you can find it here or on any podcast streaming platform. Make sure to follow @QRTheScoop on social media for updates and on-campus news.