International Engagement

A group of 30 Brazilian teachers was enrolled in a year-long Graduate Diploma in Mentoring and Leadership in Schools (International) at the College, as a result of a partnership between MIC and the CAPES Foundation, which is a public foundation within the Ministry of Higher Education in Brazil.

In mid-August, 28 teachers from public schools in Brazil travelled to Ireland to complete a postgraduate diploma in education leadership and management at MIC. The educators participated in a selection process earlier that year, run by the CAPES federal funding agency in Brazil, and had all of their costs covered by the Brazilian government during their nine-month stay in Ireland.

Since 2009, CAPES has funded international mobility programmes for 5,000 public school teachers. This was the third group of educators to travel to MIC to complete postgraduate education leadership training. The initial group consisted of 19 school directors who studied at MIC in 2019.

MIC Visit to the USA

Following an MIC visit to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana (UND) in June, a new scholarship was to be named after Jay Caponigro, RIP, who was Director of Community Engagement at UND. The scholarship would bring several MIC Education students on a short visit to UND for a school placement experience in South Bend schools. This was further discussed with Dr Brian Ó Conchubhair (UND) when he visited MIC from 4-7 December as a member of a quality review panel.

On the evening before the commencement of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU) Annual Meeting, Prof Eugene Wall, Dr Holly Cowman, and Dr Patricia Kieran welcomed more than 100 guests to the residence of the Irish Ambassador to the U.S.A., H.E. Geraldine Byrne Nason. The guests were representatives of partner universities, many of whom were attendees at the Annual Meeting, along with other distinguished guests. The event served to showcase MIC in the year in which the College celebrated 125 years since its foundation. This was the second year in a row that Ambassador H.E. Geraldine Byrne Nason and MIC co-hosted this event.

Boston College Collaboration

An essential element of consolidating and expanding the role of City Connects in Ireland was the strengthening of the partnership with Boston College and the other national stakeholders in Ireland. Towards this end, MIC visited Boston College in mid-May with a delegation relating to City Connects from the Department of Education, Tusla and the National Educational Psychological Service. As always, the spirit of collaboration was exceptional and laid the groundwork for the launch of the National Centre for City Connects Ireland (NCCCI) at MIC Limerick later in the month.

As the visit coincided with Boston College's splendid conferring ceremonies, Director of International Engagement, Holly Cowman, was awarded an Executive EdD in Higher Education with a doctoral dissertation entitled: Quality over quantity: Implementing Ireland's new, student-centred national strategy for international higher education.

Notre Dame Scholarship Programme

On 21 May, Prof Eugene Wall and Dr Holly Cowman attended a special event hosted by Pádraig Manning, Deputy Consul General of Ireland in Chicago. The event honoured six Third Year B Ed students who were on scholarships from the Keough-Naughton Institute for Irish Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. The scholarships, founded in honour of the late Jay Capanigro, enabled students to spend a week in South Bend schools.

Notre Dame is one of the premier Catholic research universities in the US, and it was great to further strengthen MIC's links there.

St John's University Partnership

Prof. Eugene Wall and Dr Holly Cowman paid a visit to MIC partner institution, St John's University in Queens, New York City, on 24 May and received a warm welcome from the Office of International Education there.

St John's had been running its signature Western Europe Semester and Western Europe: Business programmes in MIC for several years with great success. These programmes allowed St John's students to study in three unique European cities over one semester: Limerick, Paris and Rome.

MIC and St John's University were nominated in the Best International Collaboration Project category for the Western Europe Semester Programme at the Education Awards.

A meeting also occurred with Deputy Consul General, Gareth Hargadon, in the Consulate General of Ireland in New York. He commended MIC on the active and fruitful links the College had with multiple institutions across the US, and the strong educational links were reflected in the array of valuable joint programmes