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DCU President's Awards for Civic engagement

Pictured here are: Lorna Ni Cheirin, Prof. Ronaldo Munck, Dr. Liam Mac Gabhann, Karina Korotkevica, DCU President Prof. Brian Mac Craith, Dr Theo Lynn, Paddy Mc Gowan, Rosemary Clancy, Marie Mooney

In a moving recent ceremony in Albert College the DCU President’s Awards for Civic engagement were announced. Proceedings were opened by Deputy Lyons, TD for Dublin North West who spoke from personal experience of the importance of DCU to the local community. The success of DCU’s long standing Access programme was highlighted and also the more recent DCU in the Community initiative, an educational outreach facility in the heart of Ballymun. Deputy Lyons expressed his personal commitment to these educational initiatives and the broader innovation strategy of DCU.

DCU President Professor Brian Mac Craith then welcomed all the entrants in this year's competition and declared that:

"As many of you know, I am passionate about developing well-rounded graduates who can make a significant contribution to their community. DCU's Civic Engagement Strategy is focused on enhancing citizenship, delivering value back to our communities (regional, national and global) and on fostering lifelong learning".

The three winners were chosen from a strong field by the judges Lorraine Mc Ilrath from Campus Engage and Dr Claire Bohan from DCU. The three award categories and winners were designed to recognize exemplary DCU people and projects actively advancing DCU’s civic engagement strategy. This year’s winners were:

The Community Engaged Teaching & Learning Award
Winner: Karina Korotkevica DCU Final year student, Economics, Politics and
Law

Karina is an outstanding student committed to community learning. In, particular, this award acknowledges her dedicated commitment to migrant communities and their integration through information, education and participation. Karina has acted as a student ambassador locally, nationally and internationally, promoting volunteering and embodying the spirit of the the Uaneen module among the DCU student body and more widely.

The Community Engaged Research Award
Winner: Project 2020,Dr Theo Lynn, DCU Business School

This programme is developing research partnerships with a broad range of organizations and creatively helping to identify and address their research needs. Encouraging a community-engaged research ethos, postgraduate students are given opportunities to develop research skills through engaging with communities and their needs. In particular, a large number of NGM students provided invaluable research and project management support to DCU in the Community centre and projects.

The Community Impact Award
Winner: Mental Health Trialogue Network Ireland (MHTNI) core project team, DCU School of Nursing
Dr Liam Mac Gabhann, School of Nursing; Paddy Mc Gowan, School of Nursing; Lorna Ni Cheirin, School of Nursing

This project is working creatively with communities, building local capacity and helping communities to develop their own solutions. It is shining a light on one of the most controversial and common topics within modern society - mental health - supporting proactive knowledge sharing between health professionals, community members and people coping with mental health issues. By jointly developing solutions and improving dialogue and communications about mental health issues, the project is having a measurable impact on local communities.

Wrapping up the session, Professor Ronnie Munck, Head of Civc and Global engagement at DCU thanked all the award nominees and winners, stressing the need for all to act as ambassadors of DCU’s commitment to civic engagement, which is now recognized in Ireland’s National Strategy for Higher Education as an emerging key feature, as a ‘third pillar’ alongside teaching, learning and research.