“In the early 1980s, the congress of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) witnessed one of the most dramatic moments in the history of Irish student politics when a young Joe Duffy accused its leadership of being ‘a puppet of Moscow’ …” (more)
[Maurice Casey, Trinity News, 31 December]
“Employment and Learning Minister Dr Stephen Farry has congratulated New Years Honours recipients from local universities and further education colleges, including Ulster University’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Richard Barnett who was awarded the honour of Knight Bachelor for services to higher education and business …” (more)
[University of Ulster, 31 December]
“Four days before the last general election Ruairí Quinn was bounced into signing a pledge not to increase the third-level student contribution. Whatever pressure he was under, as Labour dipped in the polls in February 2011, it will pale into insignificance compared to the fight-for-life his party faces in the next general election …” (more)
[Joe Humphreys, Irish Times, 31 December]
“School leavers in Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal are most likely to get a student grant and those in Meath, Kildare and Dublin least likely, an analysis of third level education funding shows …” (more)
[Joe Humphreys, Irish Times, 31 December]
“Tomorrow people across the country will be getting ready to ring in a new year. Trinity College, and a number of other buildings around Dublin city have got a head start and are looking very fancy tonight …” (more, photos)
[TheJournal.ie, 31 December]
“Physics, chemistry, biology and the environmental sciences can deliver wonderful solutions to some of the challenges facing individuals and societies, but whether those solutions will gain traction depends on factors beyond their discoverers’ ken …” (more)
[Nature, 30 December]
“A large scale school and university education programme, funded by the Chinese government, has been under attack in both the USA and Canada …” (more, video)
[BBC News, 22 December]
“A TL:DR of Irish university internationalisation plans would be: get Chinese students, link with Chinese universities. I’m not at all sure that this makes sense, economically or otherwise …” (more)
[Brian M Lucey, 30 December]
“Philosophy is set to become a subject on the school curriculum for the first time under a plan formulated by Minister for Education Jan O’Sullivan to extend reform of the junior cycle …” (more)
[Joe Humphreys, Irish Times, 30 December]
“Laura Harmon is on the phone when I meet her outside the Douglas Hyde Gallery in Trinity College. She finishes, apologises gratuitously, and we make our way into the Arts block to locate an empty lecture theatre …” (more)
[Jonny Baxter, Village, 29 December]
“A community in Canada is hoping that a 19th-century bark-built canoe can be retained in New Brunswick, rather than be returned to NUI Galway …” (more)
[Declan Varley, Galway Advertiser, 30 December]
“Sir Paul McCartney has said he believes it is ‘ridiculous’ that The Beatles are now the subject of a university course as he doesn’t think becoming a pop star is something that can be taught …” (more)
[Independent, 29 December]
“Fast-forward a few years and you are one of them. You’ve perfected your own brand of shabby chic fashion. You spend hours each day in hipster coffee shops, drinking overpriced blends that you hadn’t even heard of before you moved to the city, and discussing the newest cult TV show …” (more)
[Doireann Ní Chonghaile, Trinity News, 29 December]
“Can you think of a professional field nowadays where it is unexpected or controversial to use computers? Before sitting down to write this post, I submitted an online maintenance request to fix a towel rack in my apartment and placed an online order to replenish my supply of oatmeal …” (more)
[Scott Trudell, OUPblog, 29 December]
“Supervisors can be enabling and supportive – but they can also be bullies. Gina Wisker offers advice on how to manage this sometimes tricky relationship …” (more)
[Guardian, 29 December]
“A fascinating study into expectations formation mechanism for career outlooks by entering doctoral students in the US. Authored by Blume-Kohout, Margaret and Clack, John, titled ‘Are Graduate Students Rational? Evidence from the Market for Biomedical Scientists’ …” (more)
[Constantin Gurdgiev, True Economics, 27 December]
“‘I was upset at first – from happiness. I was proud when I heard I was coming.’ Such was the response of one participant in a pioneering university course for students with intellectual disabilities which now faces an uncertain future due to funding difficulties …” (more)
[Lorna Siggins, Irish Times, 24 December]
“Sir, – Something is rotten in the state of Ireland. We’re well on the way to having a labour force comprised exclusively of IT geeks and financial bean counters. While universities promote recruitment fairs for IT, science, engineering and business studies students, they do virtually nothing for their arts and humanities students …” (more)
[Michael McCabe, Irish Times, 24 December]
“Trinity College Dublin is the only Irish university to appear in the 2014 Global Employability University Ranking. The index ranks the world’s top 150 universities in terms of their graduates’ employability …” (more)
[Gavin McLoughlin, Independent, 24 December]
“New figures show 22 staff at Irish universities have enjoyed lump sum pension payoffs in excess of €200,000 over the past two years. Figures supplied by the universities in response to Freedom of Information requests …” (more)
[Gordon Deegan, Irish Times, 23 December]
