The Irish Universities Association has appointed Kate Morris as Campus Engage National Coordinator. Campus Engage is a platform for the promotion of civic engagement activities in Irish higher education, and is funded by the Irish government through the Higher Education Authority (HEA).
Campus Engage is open to all higher education institutions in Ireland, and aims to strengthen the relationship between higher education and the wider society, through the promotion of civic engagement activities in higher education and facilitating the sharing of knowledge and resources between academic and civic communities. This falls within the broader objectives of the National Strategy for Higher Education to 2030.
The National Coordinator will drive the Campus Engage Initiative to support the on-going development of activities such as: service learning / community based learning, student volunteering, community engaged research and knowledge exchange and sharing, in order to increase the number of courses, activities and levels of participation in these areas across Irish higher education. A new Campus Engage Action Plan has recently been agreed, and funding secured for the period 2013 – 2015. Further information on Campus Engage can be found at www.campusengage.ie
Most recently Kate was employed as a Project Specialist at the Centre for Effective Services, managing the Centre´s knowledge exchange network and communication systems, delivering a range of capacity building tools to support and promote evidence-informed community, voluntary and youth work services, practice and policy. She has also worked with the UNESCO Centre, Northern Ireland on a children and young people’s wellbeing monitoring project, and in Ireland setting up knowledge and communications systems for Educate Together, amongst others. At EU level Kate managed an FP6 European Commission research project that studies young people’s experience of participation, education and access to employment; and on an EU Policy Indexing project that studies access to nationality, political participation, and anti-discrimination in the EU.
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More Information: Lia O’Sullivan, Communications Manager IUA, 01 6764948. lia.osullivan@iua.ie