From 25th February, IADT hosted 5 of our colleagues from Sumy State University (SSU) in Ukraina, who visited as part of the KA1 project around Student Cabinet systems. The Sumy Team of Iryna Skliar, Volodymyr Liubchak, Vladyslav Khomenko, Yurii Zuban and the esteemed Konstantyn Kyrechenko did excellent presentations and worked hard on scoping possible futures for our project together, both with the cabinet and with the Sumy e-learning platforms.
A highlight of the SSU visit was the Wednesday 27th of February launch of IADT's new Strategic Plan. The SSU team got an opportunity to meet our Minister of State for Higher Education Mary Mitchell O'Connor TD, who was delighted to welcome the team to our Institute and to Ireland.
On Wednesday 27th in the Boardroom of the Media Cube, we experienced something of a 'eureka moment' in our IADT Cabinet project. There followed a fantastic session on the morning of Thursday 28th, with Colm Hennessy, Pat Moffatt, David Doyle, Elena Somoza, Bernard Mullarkey and the Sumy representatives.
Thanks very very much to IADT's Annie Doona, Ronan O Muirthile, Therese Moylan, Elena Somoza, Bernard Mullarkey, David Doyle, Celine Blacow, Colm Hennessy, Pat Moffatt, Des Finn, Marian McDonnell, Karen Muldowney, Linda Carroll and Muiris O Grady for their extremely productive meetings with the SSU team.
High point amongst the 'cultural activities' was Thursday's visit to TCD's Long Room and The Book of Kells.
Some of us will likely travel to Sumy in June 2019, to conduct a formal Peer Review and Report on the SSU Cabinet system, as well as discussing any possible IADT cabinet and e-learning initiatives!
http://sumdu.edu.ua/int/en/news/1771-ssu-establishes-scientific-and-educational-partnership-with-ireland.html
Of course, the moment our Sumy visitors departed, the Spring weather finished in Ireland and the snow (briefly) arrived!
Thanks very much to our HEA and to DAAD for the invitation to present at DAAD's recent conference in Babelsberg, Potsdam 'Higher Education Institutions of Art, Design and Music as future "European Universities"? Innovative cooperation formats and thematic bridges.'
I presented some of the background to IADT's DL832 Animation's 'Towards Professional Practice' module in the conference's 'Innovative Study Concepts II: Team-Oriented Work on Societal Challenges' session, expertly facilitated by Stefaan De Ruyck from the Royal Conservatoire Antwerp.
Great to meet colleagues from CIT, WIT and UL, as well as Ivan Skvrce and Danko Friscic from University of Zagreb, Academy of Fine Arts, Croatia.
The European Commission's Elena Tegovska did an excellent update on the Commission's latest calls and on their thinking for the next family of Erasmus initiatives (from 2021). European degrees, innovative curriculum, innovative pedagogies, digitisation, staff development (especially increased mobility and internationalisation) are thankfully all priorities for the Commission. In the Commission's plans, cooperation should lead to innovation which should lead to excellence, with more competitive European HEIs addresssing key societal challenges. Artistic research will have the same opportunities as STEM research under the new Erasmus programmes.
Excellent Open Space discussions on the final day. I participated in what became the 'University of The Unknown' group. Exciting stuff!
