Autumn graduation at DCU
First joint-winners of Chancellor's medal at DCU

For the first time ever, two students were jointly awarded the Chancellor's medal at Dublin City University's graduation ceremony today. The Chancellor, The Hon Ms Justice Mella Carroll, presented Cara Greene and Katrina Keogh, graduates of the BSc in Computational Linguistics, with their medal at a graduation ceremony held for the first time in The Helix, the new arts centre at Dublin City University.

This award is usually made to an individual student who has achieved not just academic excellence, but who has also demonstrated an outstanding commitment and dedication to the non-academic aspects of third-level education.

Cara and Katrina designed and implemented a computer program to help people learn a foreign language. They put their software to the test in a real classroom environment, and on their own initiative, they contacted the Virgin Mary's National School, a local primary school in Ballymun.

They taught French and German to 25 10-11 year olds in 6th class of the Virgin Mary School and developed the software to suit the needs of their pupils. Once every 4th week during their final year, Cara and Katrina brought the children into the Computer Applications laboratories at Dublin City University to work on the development of their software.

Cara and Katrina were nominated for the prize by the lecturing staff in the School of Computer Applications who noted that according to their teacher in Virgin Mary School, the biggest stick she could wield was to withold permission for the boys to go to DCU for their language sessions.