A LITTLE over a year ago, Caroline Hussey was a lecturer in biochemistry at UCD with a sideline in thriller writing.

Today, through her installation as registrar of Ireland's largest university and as chair woman of the National Council for Curriculum and a Assessment (NCCA), she is arguably the second most influential woman in Irish education.

But this is no tale of a meteoric rise to fame. Hussey has served her time in academy 23 years on the staff of UCD, 19 years on its governing body. Her administrative skills have been honed on countless academic committees, at the same time as her political abilities were being tested as director of elections for Ruairi Quinn, long before he become Minister for Finance.

These skills will doubtless be exercised to the limit in her new roles. On the one hand, there are the myriad problems presented by a university literally bursting at the seams with 17,000 students. In comparison, there may be only 22 people on the NCCA, but the challenge of guiding the various vested interests on the council through a period of radical change over the next few years is not to be underestimated.

In common with many of her university colleagues, Hussey stresses the importance of "holding the line" be it against increasing Government interference, falling financial support or academic fads. She says her aim is to be "influential, not powerful", adding that she has "strong" ideas about how education should be governed and managed.

Her emphasis on "core values" will extend to her work with The NCCA "The English and US educational systems have sounded a warning for us by adjusting to every breeze and thereby losing grip on the fundamentals".

As a Labour party supporter, it isn't entirely surprising that she heartily supports Niamh Bhreathnach's decision to abolish third level fees.

"I'm possibly the only person in UCD to think that, on balance, it was a good thing. It doesn't solve all the problems of the university it actually causes some for them but it is good for the consumer."

As registrar of UCD and therefore the spiritual overseer of its students one of her main aims is to get the long awaited student centre built. A project coordinator for the centre, for which every UCD student is paying a £10 annual levy, is to be appointed early in the New Year. The building itself should be completed within two years.

Hussey has also taken on board frequent student complaints about the standard of lecturing in the colleges, though she insists this is very good "given the workload lecturers have". A staff development officer has recently been appointed in UCD to provide, training courses in lecturing for new members of staff.

Providing quality lecturing is a management problem. "Some staff shouldn't be teaching first year students. They could be disastrous in front of the large classes, but put them in with the fourth years and they're brilliant".

UCD doesn't publish information on dropout rates, but Hussey says that a greater proportion of students are now passing. Pass rates stand at between 90-95 per cent in most faculties.

The imminence of new legislation governing the universities has provoked a welter of vexed and varied opinion. Hussey's two penny worth is that the colleges should be able to manage their own affairs within stated guidelines. She points out that the universities have always been subject of the HEA and the Department of Education in many areas, so there is no reason to assume they have been, or would become, "footloose".

SOME clarification on the extent of "intrusiveness" proposed for the HEA would be useful, she says, but the presence of outsiders on the governing body is "not a major problem".

"In UCD, the external representatives have played a valuable role. I've never seen a Minister for Education try to exercise control over his/her nominees. Of course, there's plenty of politics going on, and there's supposed to be. But I've never seen party politics brought into a meeting of the governing body. Once people are made part of the process, their allegiance is to the institution.

Hussey's association with UCD predates even her days as a student. "It's been said was raised on the campus, as my father was the housemaster in the old Albert College in Glasnevin, the agriculture school linked to UCD."

Her doctorate was completed in Trinity, after which Harvard beckoned for a spell. But since 1973, Belfield has been her home, so much so that she has written murder mysteries about unsolved murders on the campus. Unruly students of UCD and members of the NCCA be warned