Ninth Level Ireland

“Earlier this year Prof Kerstin Mey shattered one of the highest and hardest glass ceilings there is in Ireland. Her appointment as president of University of Limerick in July ended a 428-year tradition of men only running Irish universities. By her own admission, the full significance of it only sank in later …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 24 November]

“The IUA welcomes the launch of the Gender Equality Enhancement Fund of €300,000 annually and the approval of the second cycle of 15 SAL Initiative posts. Our universities are fully committed to working with Minister Simon Harris and the HEA to further promote gender equality across the sector as part of a broad-based equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) agenda …” (more)

[IUA, 9 October]

“Gender stereotyping is resulting in girls’ performance at maths being significantly underestimated by teachers and parents from primary school onwards, according to new research. A study of 8,000 pupils in Ireland concludes that the perception that girls are not as good as boys is occurring at all levels of achievement, with the gap widest for high-performing girls …” (more)

[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 9 October]

“New research shows that female graduates in Ireland expect to earn up to 14% less than their male counterparts a year. The latest global talent market research by Irishjobs.ie, in partnership with employer brand specialist Universum, reveals a significant difference in the annual salary expectations of male and female graduates …” (more)

[RTÉ News, 22 September]

“Data gender has only been provided for three core subjects, leaving education experts blind as to the true picture, say Professors Pat O’Connor, Delma Byrne, and Selina McCoy. The Leaving Certificate was cancelled on May 8 to be replaced by the teachers’ subjective judgments on what percentage mark they thought each of their students might have received in the Leaving Certificate …” (more)

[Irish Examiner, 8 September]

“Women researchers are less likely to comment on academic work, and it shows a subtle gender bias in academia. If women are less likely to comment, they could be excluded from or marginalized in important scholarly debates and networks …” (more)

[Cary Wu, Rima Wilkes and Sylvia Fuller, Academic Matters, 19 August]

“Prof Kerstin Mey’s appointment as interim president of the University of Limerick (UL) earlier this week has – rightly – been lauded as historic. She is the first woman to lead one of Ireland’s universities in the 400 year-long history of third-level education in Ireland …” (more)

[University Times, 12 July]

“A chara, – In response to Carl O’Brien’s news report of July 9th on the first female president appointed at University of Limerick, this is truly a remarkable and profoundly significant day for Irish higher education and indeed for every Irish woman …” (more)

[Aoife Prendergast, Irish Times, 11 July]

“The enduring ‘baby penalty’: Having children is exciting but challenging. Economic uncertainty, environmental anxiety, and lower fertility rates are among the contributing factors that lead many to opt out of parenthood. Babies have also been damaging to women’s careers from time immemorial, especially in traditionally male-dominated fields …” (more)

[Enrica Maria Ferrara, IFUT, 8 July]

“Sir, – Prof Pat O’Connor rightly points out that the process this year of awarding estimated Leaving Certificate grades may contain some built-in biases (‘Leaving Cert calculated grades open to danger of gender bias’, Opinion & Analysis, July 1st) …” (more)

[Lennon Ó Náraigh, Irish Times, 4 July]

“Sir, – Prof Pat O’Connor (‘Leaving Cert calculated grades open to danger of gender bias’, Opinion & Analysis, July 1st) states that in the guidelines issued to teachers regarding this process ‘there is no reference to gender bias’. This is not entirely the case …” (more)

[Letters, Irish Times, 3 July]

“Pat O’Connor, Professor Emeritus of sociology and social policy at the University of Limerick and visiting Professor at the Geary Institute, University College Dublin, speaks to Mary about how the 2020 Leaving Cert calculated grading system may result in gender bias in student’s final marks …” (audio)

[RTÉ Radio 1 – Drivetime, 1 July]

“The Department of Education and Skills assumes that teachers will act professionally when estimating the percentage mark that their students might have received in the 2020 Leaving Cert, and in the ranking of their students relative to one another …” (more)

[Pat O’Connor, Irish Times, 1 July]

“In the 2020 Executive MBA rankings produced by the Economist today, the Trinity Business School has risen to 11th in Europe and 4th across the UK and Ireland. The business school ranked first in Ireland, and scored in the top five places for gender diversity …” (more)

[Shannon Connolly, Trinity News, 29 June]

The full (draft) Programme is here; extracts related to third level are here.

“Male graduates in their 20s are paid an average €3,000 a year more than their female counterparts in their first job after leaving college. The gender pay gap for the under 30s – predominantly honours degree graduates – rises to an average €4,500 when all ages are included …” (more)

[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 12 June]

“From the rise of authoritarianism to gender inequality, the coronavirus pandemic has forced us to confront some ugly truths. Women make up over 50% of the world’s population, over 50% of the EU’s graduates and just under 50% of grade C academic staff. However, in academia, that is where gender parity ends …” (more)

[Naoise D’Arcy, University Times, 21 May]

“Quarantined with a six-year-old child underfoot, Megan Frederickson wondered how academics were managing to write papers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdowns implemented to stem coronavirus spread meant that, overnight, many households worldwide had become an intersection of work, school and home life …” (more)

[Giuliana Viglione, Nature, 20 May]

“This was supposed to be a big year for Einat Lev. She planned to do field work in Hawaii and Alaska, submit a major research proposal, then finish writing the last of five papers necessary for her tenure application. In September, she would finally go before the review committee, the final step to becoming a full-fledged associate professor of seismology at Columbia University …” (more)

[Caroline Kitchener, The Lily, 24 April]

“The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) in its submission to the public consultation of the Citizen’s Assembly on Gender Equality said: ‘The Commission is also concerned about the ongoing lack of gender balance in senior academic posts in Ireland’s higher educational institutions, where there are currently no female university Presidents/Provosts, and where only 24% of Professorships are held by women …'” (more)

[IFUT, 8 April]