John Ennis at Waterford Institute of Technology, College Street Campus.

Humanities

Academic Life

John Ennis began his teaching in Waterford at the Central Technical Institute (now College of Further Education) in 1970, where he was, within days, acclaimed by his pupils as “Ennis the Menace”. Addressing his students, among them the rejects of Rice’s Mount Sion, he had told them he would tolerate nothing less than one hundred per cent pass rate in their Group Cert English and gave free supplementary Saturday classes for them. Because he was one of the few staff then with post-grad qualifications in the tech. on Parnell Street, he was moved out to the new RTC – the white elephant, the locals dubbed it– on the Cork Road in 1971 and worked both places for a number of years before settling in at the RTC, WRTC as it was soon named. He was appointed to a Post of Responsibility for the development of Liberal Studies, intended as a constituent part of the emerging National Certificates across Business, Engineering and Science. He was in the thick of the intra- and inter- College warfare on Liberal Studies, his efforts at Waterford culminating in the establishment of a Department of Humanities, then a novel development at RTC level. Taking as his pole star, a blend of ancient Greek models and the U.S. Endowment for the Humanities, he drew up Strategic Plan after Strategic Plan with National Certificates being sometimes replaced with or amalgamated into National Diplomas, which eventually metamorphosed into Degrees…