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The Print
Plan for half UCD students to come from outside CAO
from 17pc at present to 25pc by 2014 - aims to get 80pc of its students - many of whom will be full fee-paying involved in regular physical exercise. students from outside the European Union. History The proposed shift is revealed in the university’s new strategic plan ‘Forming Global Minds’. It Launching the plan, President Dr Hugh promises “a new breed of creative, innovative Brady said that over its 155-year history graduates formed in an environment of UCD had played an important role in research, discovery and entrepreneurship”. the development of modern Ireland.
Just half of UCD students will come through the CAO system in the future, the university believes.
The document also envisages the end of the era of remote dons who avoid teaching first-year students. In future, it will be normal practice for professors to contribute to the teaching of such incoming students.
The Dublin-based university plans to increase its intake of ‘non-traditional’ college goers -- such as mature and part-time students, those with disabilities, and those from lower socio-economic backgrounds.
In addition, all newly appointed academic staff are to receive appropriate training in university teaching. Students will also be asked for more regular feedback on their lecturers through surveys on the quality of teaching.
Such students can also enter the college via the CAO. However, most gain places with lower points, or on the basis of other qualifications, or on a combination of their results with an interview process.
Improvements in lecturing will be backed up by the establishment of a new Institute for The percentage of graduate Learning Innovation and Academic Discipline. students is to increase from 26pc to 33pc of the student body by 2014. Changes to the faculty structure are John Walshe also on the cards. The 11 faculties, and 110 departments and academic Education Editor centres, will be streamlined into a much Irish Independent - April 21 2010 smaller number of schools and colleges. The college’s strategic plan also
UCD aims to increase its intake of such students from 17pc to 25pc by 2014. The university also plans to increase its proportion of international students
“Now, in a time of national and global difficulty, UCD is once again committing its intellectual resources to the rebirth of economic prosperity in Ireland.” The next few years will see significant expansion of UCD’s fourth-level portfolio and international programmes, and the mainstreaming of innovation as the third pillar of activity alongside teaching and research in the context of the UCD-TCD Innovation Alliance.
Update on the Library Extension Preparations for the new library extension continue apace. The redevelopment will include much-needed facilities including a café, group study rooms, social study space, silent student areas, postgraduate study room, information skills rooms, more sockets, more space for library books and much, much more. The Café will have 66 seats and include an outdoor plaza for the warm weather – if and when we get any!. The IT services will be hugely improved. More sockets will mean no need for trailing cables. Wireless networking will be available throughout the building and there will be the same number of publicly accessible PCs in the library at there is currently on the whole of the campus. There will also be printing, copying and borrowing facilities throughout the library. . In order to get to our new building, there are a few rivers to be crossed! Enabling work on the site begins in the summer. This will include the removal of the current foot bridge.
The Print master 23
This will be replaced with a roundabout on the Kilcock road and a narrowed carriageway leading to a controlled signalled crossing. When work begins on the building – again this is expected to be during the late summer or early autumn – the car park at the John Paul II Library will be used as a work area by the builders and will no longer be available for staff and students. Alternative facilities will be provided including a large surface car park on the North campus. While there is no doubt there will be significant disruption during the building period, it is necessary in order to create
the Library that our University now needs. Effective communication is vital as we enter the building period, so we can endeavour to minimise disruption. The new library page on the Library website will be regularly updated with the latest information. The library will also work closely with the library consultative forum, of which the SU is a member, the Student Library Committee and other stakeholders to share information and reduce the disruption to library users. This will involve a lot of work but students can look forward to a worldclass library facility from 2012 onwards.
Helen Fallon
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04/05/2010 12:43:37