In the past decade Rankings and Leagues have become a big issue for Universities and are increasingly used by students to help with their college choice. Over the summer, both the Princeton Review in the US and the Guardian in the UK have issued League Tables ranking colleges using Sustainability Criteria. The Princeton Review noted that for 69% of students a college's commitment to the environment would impact their decision to choose that University. So with the CAO college choice process coming to a head next week, it seems like a good time to ask “Which is the Greenest Irish College?”
The People and Planet League Table uses a range of criteria against which colleges are rated – Environmental staffing, Transport, Energy, Carbon Emissions, Sustainable Food and Fairtrade.
Several Irish colleges are making progress in those areas:
NUI Galway has appointed a full-time Environmental Officer to work on sustainability;
DIT has been recognised by the Dublin Cycling Campaign for their support for sustainable transport;
Several Dublin colleges have reduced their carbon emissions and energy use via the E3 consortium;
The wind turbine in Dundalk IT has become a powerful symbol for that college’s commitment;
UL is promoting sustainable food via its Farmer’s Market;
and NUI Maynooth was the first college to become a Fairtrade University.
However in other areas - Ethical Investment; Carbon Management; Ethical Procurement – examples of good practice in Ireland are harder to find.
At the moment, the information isn’t available to develop a Green League in Ireland, but one very positive development has been the extension of An Taisce’s highly successful Green Flag programme to college campuses. The programme recognises long term commitment to continuous improvement in environmental management and enhancement. So take a bow, UCC, GMIT and Colaiste Dhulaigh for their great work in being awarded Green Flags – for the moment we’ll put you on top of the Irish Green League Table!
Thursday 18 August 2011
Monday 18 July 2011
Student Affairs – who gets the most money?
The recent review of spending on student services (which can be found here) has yielded some interesting information on where colleges are spending their money. From the €1500 student charge, around €370 goes to what we would normally consider to be student support services. Around €220 goes on exams and registration, and €750 goes on academic services – Library, Information Systems, etc.
By combining the data from the review with the analysis from a 2007 study, we came up with the following breakdown of how that €370 is spent.
By combining the data from the review with the analysis from a 2007 study, we came up with the following breakdown of how that €370 is spent.
It’s not surprising that Sports are on top, given the size and scale of the facilities that they usually manage. However, it is unexpected to see student societies languishing on the bottom, given their positive impact on student engagement. One explanation is that in some of the smaller colleges, societies are funded through the Students’ Union, and so their funding may be understated. Similarly, Student Health Centres are usually ranked as the most important service by students, so their funding might be expected to be higher. However, several colleges have recently introduced charges for their Health Centres, which might explain the relatively low funding. It’s also interesting to consider what those figures would have looked like 15 years ago (access, disability and mature student support would have been largely absent for a start).
One final note – the next graph shows the growth ofthe student charge over the years. All those people who warned against the introduction of the charge as the “thin end of the wedge” in 1995 will probably take cold comfort in being proven correct. 
Tuesday 12 July 2011
Boston or Berlin . . . or both?
An ex-Minister for Enterprise in Ireland famously remarked once that, while we were geographically closer to Berlin, spiritually we were closer to Boston. Events over the past week have caused me to wonder if the same applies in the area of Irish Student Affairs.
This week, I had the great honour of presenting a paper at the Bologna – Social Dimension International Conference. The Conference brought student affairs professionals from over 40 countries to Berlin to discuss how we could provide the supports to students to support the Bologna Process. Case studies on student support services were presented from countries spanning five continents. As I presented to the audience, it became very clear that the Irish model of Student Services had many similarities to the US, UK, and Australian models, but was quite different to the models in France, Germany, Italy and the Nordic countries.
In Ireland we have traditionally looked to the US for inspiration in the area of Student Affairs. Indeed, I spent two very happy years studying and working in Missouri to get my Masters in Student Affairs. The researchers that I and my Irish colleagues quote would tend to be from the US – Astin, Tinto, Chickering, Pascarella and Terenzini, Kuh . . . the list goes on.
However, the last few days in Berlin have been an eye-opener. The European models have succeeded in making basic necessities, such as accommodation and food, very affordable for students – something the Irish system has failed to do (Ireland is one of only two countries in Europe where on-campus accommodation is more expensive than private rented accommodation). The centralised support systems provided by the German Studentenwerken and the Norwegian Studentsamskipnaden have undoubted advantages in a time when the Irish government are urging HEIs in Ireland to collaborate and share resources. Beyond the boundaries of Europe there are also valuable lessons to be learned. In Asia, where central government is developing new Universities on a massive scale, they have studied student services and copied best practice from around the globe to develop high-quality, professional services from scratch.
In short, to answer the question of whether we should be looking to Berlin or Boston, I think Irish Student Affairs will need to look all over the world to find inspiration and ideas that will help us improve the student experience in higher education. In the short to medium term, I do hope and believe that we will be working much closer with our European colleagues to develop the Social Dimension of European Higher Education.
As a postscript – it was gratifying to realise that Irish Student Services are rated very highly by our European colleagues. In particular they were interested in our guidelines for best practice; how we had reached a situation where 65% of our school leavers enter Higher Education; and how we have widened equity of access. We tend to be quite self-critical (even more so in the past three years) so it was a lovely moment for me when the speaker from the European Commission showed several slides where Ireland was clearly the most successful country in tackling access issues.
This week, I had the great honour of presenting a paper at the Bologna – Social Dimension International Conference. The Conference brought student affairs professionals from over 40 countries to Berlin to discuss how we could provide the supports to students to support the Bologna Process. Case studies on student support services were presented from countries spanning five continents. As I presented to the audience, it became very clear that the Irish model of Student Services had many similarities to the US, UK, and Australian models, but was quite different to the models in France, Germany, Italy and the Nordic countries.
In Ireland we have traditionally looked to the US for inspiration in the area of Student Affairs. Indeed, I spent two very happy years studying and working in Missouri to get my Masters in Student Affairs. The researchers that I and my Irish colleagues quote would tend to be from the US – Astin, Tinto, Chickering, Pascarella and Terenzini, Kuh . . . the list goes on.
However, the last few days in Berlin have been an eye-opener. The European models have succeeded in making basic necessities, such as accommodation and food, very affordable for students – something the Irish system has failed to do (Ireland is one of only two countries in Europe where on-campus accommodation is more expensive than private rented accommodation). The centralised support systems provided by the German Studentenwerken and the Norwegian Studentsamskipnaden have undoubted advantages in a time when the Irish government are urging HEIs in Ireland to collaborate and share resources. Beyond the boundaries of Europe there are also valuable lessons to be learned. In Asia, where central government is developing new Universities on a massive scale, they have studied student services and copied best practice from around the globe to develop high-quality, professional services from scratch.
In short, to answer the question of whether we should be looking to Berlin or Boston, I think Irish Student Affairs will need to look all over the world to find inspiration and ideas that will help us improve the student experience in higher education. In the short to medium term, I do hope and believe that we will be working much closer with our European colleagues to develop the Social Dimension of European Higher Education.
As a postscript – it was gratifying to realise that Irish Student Services are rated very highly by our European colleagues. In particular they were interested in our guidelines for best practice; how we had reached a situation where 65% of our school leavers enter Higher Education; and how we have widened equity of access. We tend to be quite self-critical (even more so in the past three years) so it was a lovely moment for me when the speaker from the European Commission showed several slides where Ireland was clearly the most successful country in tackling access issues.
Friday 24 June 2011
Students and Alcohol - an Irish Love Story or an Abusive Relationship?
A confluence of events over the past few weeks has pushed the issue of Irish students and their attitude to alcohol to the forefront in my college. First of all we were producing our annual Student Cost of Living Guide, the relevance of which will become clear later. Then we attended our national Student Affairs conference (CSSI – the Confederation of Student Services in Ireland) where there were many presentations and panel discussions on the negative impact of alcohol on students. We also welcomed three visitors on a NASPA International Exchange (Gail from Clemson, Todd from Duke, and Eric from Sewanee, University of the South – all of whom were engaging, informative and gracious guests!) and as we tried to explain Irish student life to them we began to realise how bizarre it must sound (“Colleges sell alcohol to fund student activities?”). Most recently, at our annual DIT Campus Life team meeting, Dr Michael Byrne from UCC gave us a presentation on students and alcohol that was, literally, sobering.
The figures are stark. Alcohol consumption tripled in Ireland between 1960 and 2000. At 12.4 litres per capita, Irish people have the second highest alcohol consumption rate in Europe, and 44% of them binge drink (5 or more drinks at one sitting) on a weekly basis.
The figures for students are much worse – Irish students drink more than their counterparts who are not attending college, and on average they binge drink once a week. In the 2010 survey in University College Cork, 98.3% of the students drank alcohol, and equal numbers of male and female students were binge drinking, which is a significant change in the past decade. UCC, it should be noted, are no worse in this regard than any other college, and are to be praised for bringing the issue to public awareness.
I mentioned our Cost of Living Guide earlier, which we produce to help students and their parents budget for the coming year. We base the guide on the student expenditure figures from the Eurostudent survey. However, in our cost of living guide, we have to switch the amounts allocated for Food and for Socialising, because Irish students spend more on alcohol each week than they spend on food.
During the CSSI Conference panel discussions on alcohol, the disparity in views between the students and the health promotion professionals who were present was very clear. The students felt that Campus Alcohol Policies represented the nanny state; that they weren’t being treated as adults; that brewery sponsorship and alcohol advertising should be allowed back on campus; and that there should be an emphasis on education and “responsible drinking”. The health promotion professionals pointed out that the drinks companies were anxious to use education and promote “responsible drinking” because it was the most ineffective approach. Increasing the price of alcohol (Graph shows effect of alcohol becoming more affordable) and restricting access have been demonstrated again and again as the most effective way to tackle alcohol consumption.
The Irish National Alcohol Strategy has still not been implemented five years after it was published, and the drinks industry lobby groups have demonstrated their muscle time and again in limiting the effectiveness of any attempts to curb alcohol consumption. In May, pictures of Barack Obama and the Queen of England being offered pints of Guinness during their visits (the Queen declined to drink her pint) were beamed worldwide, consolidating the central place of alcohol in Irish society. There are welcome moves again to tackle alcohol in Irish Higher Education, and as was pointed out by our NASPA colleagues, a multi-layered approach needs to be taken to tackle the problem. There’s no one magic bullet to this problem, but it needs to be faced up to now.
Michael Byrne's excellent presentation may be found here.
The figures are stark. Alcohol consumption tripled in Ireland between 1960 and 2000. At 12.4 litres per capita, Irish people have the second highest alcohol consumption rate in Europe, and 44% of them binge drink (5 or more drinks at one sitting) on a weekly basis.
The figures for students are much worse – Irish students drink more than their counterparts who are not attending college, and on average they binge drink once a week. In the 2010 survey in University College Cork, 98.3% of the students drank alcohol, and equal numbers of male and female students were binge drinking, which is a significant change in the past decade. UCC, it should be noted, are no worse in this regard than any other college, and are to be praised for bringing the issue to public awareness.
I mentioned our Cost of Living Guide earlier, which we produce to help students and their parents budget for the coming year. We base the guide on the student expenditure figures from the Eurostudent survey. However, in our cost of living guide, we have to switch the amounts allocated for Food and for Socialising, because Irish students spend more on alcohol each week than they spend on food.
During the CSSI Conference panel discussions on alcohol, the disparity in views between the students and the health promotion professionals who were present was very clear. The students felt that Campus Alcohol Policies represented the nanny state; that they weren’t being treated as adults; that brewery sponsorship and alcohol advertising should be allowed back on campus; and that there should be an emphasis on education and “responsible drinking”. The health promotion professionals pointed out that the drinks companies were anxious to use education and promote “responsible drinking” because it was the most ineffective approach. Increasing the price of alcohol (Graph shows effect of alcohol becoming more affordable) and restricting access have been demonstrated again and again as the most effective way to tackle alcohol consumption.
The Irish National Alcohol Strategy has still not been implemented five years after it was published, and the drinks industry lobby groups have demonstrated their muscle time and again in limiting the effectiveness of any attempts to curb alcohol consumption. In May, pictures of Barack Obama and the Queen of England being offered pints of Guinness during their visits (the Queen declined to drink her pint) were beamed worldwide, consolidating the central place of alcohol in Irish society. There are welcome moves again to tackle alcohol in Irish Higher Education, and as was pointed out by our NASPA colleagues, a multi-layered approach needs to be taken to tackle the problem. There’s no one magic bullet to this problem, but it needs to be faced up to now.
Michael Byrne's excellent presentation may be found here.
Monday 13 June 2011
5 valuable web tools for Student Affairs folks
The following 5 have been picked because they’re being used by fellow Student Affairs professionals; because they’re free; and because they’ve saved those people time and money – which is important in these (still) recessionary times! Some of the recommended tools may seem pretty basic to those of you who have come to the blog via Twitter, Linkedin or other futuristic social media outlets! But in January I delivered a Social Media workshop to colleagues and was taken aback by the number of people who didn’t even have a gmail account.
Anyhow – here’s my Top 5!
Doodle.com – Working in a multi-site campus (39 sites at the last count), with staff scattered across the city, there was a time when there were three options for scheduling a meeting - phoning all participants multiple times to get a consensus; e-mailing them with options and collating the results; or taking the totalitarian approach and unilaterally naming a time and venue and hoping enough people could make it. Now Doodle has made scheduling meetings a doddle.
Dropbox.com – Possibly soon to be overtaken by the all powerful Apple and their iCloud, but for the moment Dropbox rules in the area of document sharing and synchronising files between devices.
Teamer.net – Originally developed to organise and communicate easily with sports teams, Teamer is now being used by student societies, pastoral support groups, peer mentoring teams, chaplaincy teams, and anybody that has to organise groups on a regular basis.
Website polls – Too many to mention – but snappoll, polldaddy, booroo and freepollkit are all used by colleagues. A great way to get instant feedback from students on any subject; to get some stats on the rapidly changing student population; or to monitor changes over time on important stats like part-time work. Booroo lets you set quiz questions, which is a fun way to test how much your students know about your services. Unfortunately the sampling technique usually isn’t rigorous enough to give 100% confidence in the answers, but it’s a great indication of the way things are looking.
Google Docs, Google Calendars, Google Maps, Google Everything! Four years ago our services were investing money in software that could allow them to share calendars and make bookings remotely. Now staff can put appointments in from their smartphone, and send the students a link with the exact location of their office. I’m pretty sure we’re not using a fraction of the functionality that’s available from Google!
Well that’s my top 5, as I said, we’re just scratching the surface on useful web tools, and I’d love to hear other suggestions, critiques, or just comments in general!
Anyhow – here’s my Top 5!
Doodle.com – Working in a multi-site campus (39 sites at the last count), with staff scattered across the city, there was a time when there were three options for scheduling a meeting - phoning all participants multiple times to get a consensus; e-mailing them with options and collating the results; or taking the totalitarian approach and unilaterally naming a time and venue and hoping enough people could make it. Now Doodle has made scheduling meetings a doddle.
Dropbox.com – Possibly soon to be overtaken by the all powerful Apple and their iCloud, but for the moment Dropbox rules in the area of document sharing and synchronising files between devices.
Teamer.net – Originally developed to organise and communicate easily with sports teams, Teamer is now being used by student societies, pastoral support groups, peer mentoring teams, chaplaincy teams, and anybody that has to organise groups on a regular basis.
Website polls – Too many to mention – but snappoll, polldaddy, booroo and freepollkit are all used by colleagues. A great way to get instant feedback from students on any subject; to get some stats on the rapidly changing student population; or to monitor changes over time on important stats like part-time work. Booroo lets you set quiz questions, which is a fun way to test how much your students know about your services. Unfortunately the sampling technique usually isn’t rigorous enough to give 100% confidence in the answers, but it’s a great indication of the way things are looking.
Google Docs, Google Calendars, Google Maps, Google Everything! Four years ago our services were investing money in software that could allow them to share calendars and make bookings remotely. Now staff can put appointments in from their smartphone, and send the students a link with the exact location of their office. I’m pretty sure we’re not using a fraction of the functionality that’s available from Google!
Well that’s my top 5, as I said, we’re just scratching the surface on useful web tools, and I’d love to hear other suggestions, critiques, or just comments in general!
Tuesday 7 June 2011
Research shows Commuter Students more satisfied than Students living in Residence Halls
It is by now an accepted fact that living on campus is better for students than living at home with their parents, but recent studies from Europe are challenging that orthodoxy, and may shine a light into the future for US residential life.
Pascarella and Terenzini’s meta-analysis of 2,500 research studies showed that students living in on-campus accommodation were more likely to get better grades and to progress to graduation – even when pre-college characteristics were taken into account. Pretty incontrovertible evidence, one would think. Of course, these studies took place in the US where the halls are generally run by the University (not privately-run), where rooms are often shared by students, and where there are excellent residential life programmes.
However, the experience in Ireland has been slightly different and is an interesting case study as it may reflect the future for US colleges. Ireland has come late to student residence halls. In the last ten years, following the introduction of tax breaks for property developers (don’t get me started!), the percentage of students living on campus went from 4.4% to 17%.
Pascarella and Terenzini’s meta-analysis of 2,500 research studies showed that students living in on-campus accommodation were more likely to get better grades and to progress to graduation – even when pre-college characteristics were taken into account. Pretty incontrovertible evidence, one would think. Of course, these studies took place in the US where the halls are generally run by the University (not privately-run), where rooms are often shared by students, and where there are excellent residential life programmes.
However, the experience in Ireland has been slightly different and is an interesting case study as it may reflect the future for US colleges. Ireland has come late to student residence halls. In the last ten years, following the introduction of tax breaks for property developers (don’t get me started!), the percentage of students living on campus went from 4.4% to 17%.
Worryingly, however, students living in on-campus accommodation are the least satisfied with their living arrangements, and are also less happy with other aspects of college life (Eurostudent study). While only 67% of students living on-campus describe themselves as Satisfied or Very Satisfied, the equivalent statistic for students living at home with their parents is 88%. (The figure in private rented accommodation is 79% - also higher than the on-campus satisfation rating).
In fact Irish students living at home were the happiest of all student cohorts in 23 European countries (apart from Portuguese students living at home). This says something about Irish Mammies which I won’t go into here – but any Higher Ed administrator who has taken a phone call from a disgruntled Irish Mammy knows that they’re not to be trifled with!
However, more importantly, it also says something about Irish residence halls. The structure of the halls was defined in the property tax legislation – apartments with up to eight bedrooms grouped round a self-catering kitchen. Generally these are single bedrooms with a study desk and internet access. Fifteen thousand such rooms have been built in the past decade, the majority by private operators. There is no requirement for residence life programming, pastoral care, Living Learning Centres, or social spaces.
The trend in the US is apparently towards apartments and increased privacy for students, with growth in the numbers of privately operated residence halls. The experience in Ireland has been that students in apartments can retreat to their bedrooms and not engage with their flatmates, other students, or the college life in general. By moving to meet consumer demand from students are we shooting ourselves (and them) in the foot?
I would be very interested in seeing any US research that has compared student satisfaction based on place of residence, so please point me in the right direction!
Wednesday 1 June 2011
The Top 5 YouTube Videos about Student Life in Ireland
While doing a bit of research into the use of social media by colleges in Ireland, I found that unsurprisingly the most popular videos about college life in Ireland are not the slick promo videos or the videos with some Professor explaining why slug slime is fascinating (slugs use it to eat each other apparently). If you search for the names of the Universities and IoTs, the most popular videos (that I could find at least) are as follows:
Trinity Orchestra plays Daft Punk
Students slipping during UL Study Week
UCC Dance Soc do T Mobile Ad
Sligo IT Engineering Hovercraft
DIT student life video
The Trinity Orchestra video, with over 375,000 views, has been viewed the same number of times as all the official videos on all the University YouTube channels collectively. Good value! Start giving your student societies video cameras!
(If I’ve missed any videos with over 45,000 views my apologies – please let me know in the comments!)
Trinity Orchestra plays Daft Punk
Students slipping during UL Study Week
UCC Dance Soc do T Mobile Ad
Sligo IT Engineering Hovercraft
DIT student life video
The Trinity Orchestra video, with over 375,000 views, has been viewed the same number of times as all the official videos on all the University YouTube channels collectively. Good value! Start giving your student societies video cameras!
(If I’ve missed any videos with over 45,000 views my apologies – please let me know in the comments!)
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