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This paper uses the thick description of one recent experience – the closure of the Common Room Club at University College Dublin – to highlight the gap that exists between rhetoric and reality at institutions of higher education in Ireland and beyond. I argue that common rooms have always been part and parcel of the 'invisible university'. They provide the infrastructure to support what has been called the 'lifeworld', sustaining both the communicative experiences of their members and providing vital venues for visitors who are through them more readily drawn into the communicative life of colleagues. As unique spaces within much larger institutions, common rooms form both a protected shield and also a porous social community against the encroachment of the university system's instrumental action and reasoning. However, recent changes in higher education have accelerated the pace of change and the quest for top-down modernisation. As a reaction, and almost by default, the common room has taken on a new function for faculty, staff and visitors and turned into a place of encounter between people and ideas critical and often opposed to managerialism, bureaucratisation and the mindless emulation of higher education's fads and foibles. At University College Dublin, this new role did not remain unnoticed by the University management and triggered an extreme reaction – enforced closure. My paper closes by dwelling on an important question that points into an uncertain future: is it possible for any institution that purports to be a centre of higher learning to either quell or attempt to 'manage' lifeworld experiences and sceptical voices for any length of time? In other words, can a university still fulfil its very function and expect loyalty without allowing 'voice' (A. O. Hirschman) to be heard? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some of the main concerns in international higher education are the feeling of isolation among international students and their inability to adapt to the host environment, which may result in sub-optimal academic performance. Theoretically, peer learning can be an effective method to reduce these problems since it has the capacity to address isolation and adaptability issues among international students in a way that improves their learning experience and outcomes. Given the above, our study was designed to investigate this topic, focusing on the experience of international students. In this exploratory case study of a leading Irish university, we adopted a survey method via questionnaire to quantify and compare the experiences of a sample of international students at the said university. Five aspects of peer learning were explored, namely usage rate, current practices, outcomes, challenges, and coping strategies. We also included an open-ended section in the survey instrument for respondents to offer qualitative suggestions to the host institution. Through methodological triangulation of the quantitative and qualitative data, we discovered diverse practices, challenges, and outcomes of peer learning across different groups of international students in this university. The paper concludes with a discussion of research implications and suggestions for future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research from a small-scale study analysing how graduates and alumni feature in the strategic plans of all Irish universities (n = 7). The data suggest that the word 'graduate' is used to describe the work of the university as an enabler for the graduate, to prepare for the employment to acquire key skills, towards a foundation of 'graduateness' such as reflective thinking, moral reasoning and lifelong learning aligning with the institution's key performance indicators. In contrast, 'alumni' are featured related to alumnus/alumna success. Irish Higher Education Institutions view alumni as a key enabler to contribute to the university's mission and vision: through giving, both of their time and philanthropic donations. Based on the strategic plan discourse, the role of alumni in Irish universities suggests a similar trend, relying on alumni as an internal stakeholder with an external ability to offer value to the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the perception amongst insiders of the degree of innovativeness of organisational culture in Ireland's higher education institutions. While the role of higher education institutions has expanded to include being a driver of innovation, we suggest that any such body is perhaps best suited to achieve this if it itself is innovative. We review the literature on corporate innovation, discuss a recent metric of innovativeness in culture and present the results of a large-scale survey on said culture within the higher education sector in Ireland. There is a divide between the university and institutes of technology sector, with organisational culture in universities being perceived to be much more innovative than that in institutes, despite these latter being designed to be closer to industry. We also find that STEM faculty members see culture as less innovative than others. These findings raise questions around the implicit and explicit thrusts of Irish higher education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores student mobility among Irish higher education students. It specifically focuses on the profile of ‘stayers’, that is, students who have no plans to study abroad, thus addressing an underexplored topic in existing literature on student mobility. The article aims to identify factors that impact on students’ decisions not to pursue study abroad. Drawing on a national survey of students, Eurostudent V, the findings demonstrate that immobility is predicted by mother’s level of education and family income, showing the salience of socio-economic factors. Age and language proficiency are also visible factors, with the main obstacles to mobility being finances, language barriers and not wanting to separate from family and friends. Trends are also visible in the education institution a student is enrolled in, with those in institutes of technology more likely to be immobile than those in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – This study presents institutional research and aims to explore the underlying factors that contribute to hospitality management students' satisfaction and perceptions of service quality at a higher education college in Ireland. Research focusing on hospitality and leisure management education argues for greater cognisance of the relevance of students' experience with third level education. Therefore, the current paper seeks to address the issue of student feedback and satisfaction measurement in light of recent proposals. Design/methodology/approach – The responses to a "course satisfaction questionnaire" taken from a database of first year students (n=263) were factor-analysed using the principal component technique, the purpose of which was to identify latent explanatory variables of the student satisfaction concept as applied in a hospitality management context. Descriptive analysis was used to examine the level of satisfaction within the data. Tests for gender and nationality differences were conducted. Correlational analysis along with multiple regression techniques were applied to the data set to explore the salient relationships between satisfaction variables. Findings – Analysis reveals a multidimensional structure of student satisfaction. Six underlying factors accounted for a high percentage of variance in explaining student satisfaction. Academic support, welfare support and course communication structures are identified as being significant determinants while differences based on nationality are observed, particularly in relation to pre-placement support. Practical implications – Issues such as quality of student life and other non-institutional factors need to be accounted for in offering a more comprehensive explanation of student satisfaction. The role of pre-work placement preparation is emphasised. The potential to chart the level and structure of student satisfaction throughout the whole institution is suggested. Furthermore, the prospect of conducting longitudinal research serves as a unique opportunity. The use of quantitative techniques, bolstered by qualitative methods, is recommended as a future direction for data collection, analysis and synthesis. Originality/value – This paper attempts to fill a gap in student satisfaction research from a hospitality and tourism management perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Irish elite schools have adopted some internationalising practices, international students are often erased from their ‘public faces’. Based on interviews and analysis of schools' websites, this paper argues that Brooks and Waters' [2014. “The Hidden Internationalism of Elite English Schools.”Sociology, advance online publication April 2] argument that elite schools hide their internationalism to preserve an explicit national identity for strategic purposes largely applies to the Irish case. In addition, it explores how features characteristic of Irish elite educational settings can help understand ambiguous attitudes to the international ‘other’, who is not only hidden but also at times ‘Irish-ised’ as these schools cultivate cultural identities defined primarily along ethno-national lines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite over 60 years of research on leadership, few attempts have been made to ensure that the models of leadership are inclusive of women or other ‘outsiders’. This paper explores variation in the constructions of leadership at a time of institutional change in higher education. Drawing on a purposive sample, including those at presidential/rector, vice presidential/vice rector level in Irish and Portuguese universities, it compares and contrasts such senior managers' conceptions of leadership, as reflected in their descriptions of a typical president/rector and those characteristics that they see as valued in senior management in their own university. Attention is particularly focussed on the identification and gendering of collegial/managerial characteristics, and the extent to which it reflects variation in these university contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last number of years, opportunities to learn in higher education for people with intellectual disabilities have increased. Consequently, this subgroup of students is gradually becoming part of an increasingly diverse college community. Because learning varies across different individual cultures and systems of higher education, our current understandings of how students with intellectual disabilities learn are inadequate. This study set out to explore how people with intellectual disabilities learn in one Irish college. Eighteen students with intellectual disabilities were asked to make a drawing of how they understood learning and were interviewed by six of their peers who trained as co-researchers. The findings indicate that the learning experiences of these students are as complex and as multifaceted as any other college student. A model that captures this learning is presented using four categories: the Cognitive Stages of Learning, Self-regulation of Learning, Learning as Collective Meaning Making and the Supportive Environment and Learning. The learning potential for people with intellectual disabilities presented in this paper goes some way to addressing preconceived notions associated with the label of intellectual disability. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents, for the first time, comprehensive measures of geographic accessibility to higher education both within and between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Using geographic information system techniques, we find high levels of geographic accessibility to higher education in both jurisdictions. However, when we differentiate by type of higher education institution, we find that overall accessibility to universities in the Republic of Ireland is poor relative to Northern Ireland. Using data on enrolment and mobility rates, we find evidence that these geographic inequalities in accessibility may play a role in determining the type of higher education an individual pursues in the Republic of Ireland. Our analysis also explores the potential accessibility implications of recently announced changes to the structure of the higher education system in the Republic of Ireland. These changes are shown to result in an improvement in geographic accessibility to a university education in the south-west and south-east, with the north-west remaining at a disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of increased emphasis on quality assurance of teaching, it is crucial that student evaluations of teaching (SET) methods be both reliable and workable in practice. Online SETs particularly tend to raise criticisms with those most reactive to mechanisms of teaching accountability. However, most studies of SET processes have been conducted with convenience, small and cross-sectional samples. Longitudinal studies are rare, as comparison studies on SET methodological approaches are generally pilot studies followed shortly after by implementation. The investigation presented here significantly contributes to the debate by examining the impact of the online administration method of SET on a very large longitudinal sample at the course level rather than attending to the student unit, thus compensating for the inter-dependency of students’ responses according to the instructor variable. It explores the impact of the administration method of SET (paper based in-class vs. out-of-class online collection) on scores, with a longitudinal sample of over 63,000 student responses collected over a total period of 10 years. Having adjusted for the confounding effect of class size, faculty, year of evaluation, years of teaching experience and student performance, it is observed that the actual effect of the administration method exists, but is insignificant. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2008 global financial crisis cast a long shadow over Ireland's higher education and research system. The IMF said Ireland experienced an ‘unprecedented economic correction’, while Ireland's National Economic and Social Development Office said Ireland was beset by five different crises: a banking crisis, a fiscal crisis, an economic crisis, a social crisis and a reputational crisis. Despite a return to growth, these circumstances provide the best explanation for the policy choices being undertaken as key actors struggle to sustain the publicly funded mass system, and reassert the country's position as a globally competitive knowledge society attractive to mobile capital and skilled labour. Whatever the outcome, it is unlikely that public funding for higher education will return to levels previously enjoyed. This paper examines the background and policy challenges confronting the government and higher education, and discusses the role of higher education researchers in helping shape options. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Strategic planning has become an integral part of the management of higher education institutions worldwide. The experiences of all but one of the Republic of Ireland's 21 universities and institutes of technology with strategic planning are explored from 2000 to 2010. At the starting point in 2000, only two institutions had a documented strategic plan. Ten years later, all had undergone one or more iterations of strategic planning. Qualitative research methods were used including document analysis of n=42 strategic plans, n=12 institutional review reports and n=26 interviews with senior managers with responsibility for strategic planning. The paper considers whether the strategic planning models used in the past decade will be able to meet the challenges presented by unprecedented economic circumstances and the new national strategy for higher education in Ireland. Significant deficits are identified with respect to strategic planning for institutional diversity, performance-related funding and external stakeholder engagement. Fundamental questions are raised in relation to the approaches taken to strategy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents findings from research that investigated students and academic staff working in partnership to co-create curricula. Using case study methodology, the study investigated three examples within higher education in the UK, Ireland and the USA, where academic staff and students co-designed curricula. Findings focus on the approach to co-created curricula described by academic staff within each setting, followed by presentation of cross-case themes and outcomes from the three examples. The discussion focuses on drawing out key messages from the study results including the importance of students’ views being taken seriously and a range of early design decisions that are taken by academic staff and which are useful to those considering co-creating curricula. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Drawing on the concept of two masters (Donahoo & Lee, 2008), this paper examines the emergence of a potential third master: philanthropic alumni donors. A case study of a Catholic higher education institution in Ireland, with the pseudonym “College Nua,” provides the platform for this research. This institution is in a unique position: the college is at the initial stages of formalizing the institutional structures for alumni relations and philanthropic giving. The empirical findings demonstrate the influence of the first two “masters” at the college, defined as the (a) priorities derived from the State policy balanced with the (b) intentions of the religious orders that remain affiliated to and involved in the stewardship of the college. By examining the existing informal practices with alumni at College Nua, this institution intends to create an administrative infrastructure to manage philanthropy. College Nua is establishing a philanthropic function that follows what the EU Commission (2008) describes as an alumni model of philanthropy, which demonstrates the power alumni donors may possess in steering the Catholic college's future strategy. Overall, the college leadership involved in the empirical study responded positively to the possible impact of alumni donors toward the institution. The informal relationships developed with alumni are encouraging to College Nua that the addition of philanthropic donors as a possible “third master” will enable the college to control its institutional destiny while addressing the demands of the first two masters: meeting national higher education policy and securing the Catholic tradition at the institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]