As the University of Limerick commences three days of Winter conferring ceremonies which will see 1831 students conferring, including 74 PhDs, UL President, Professor Don Barry highlighted the increasing growth in demand for UL graduates by employers and the institution’s position as Sunday Times University of the Year.
Speaking from the first of six conferring ceremonies Professor Barry said: “Today we also celebrate the national recognition of our efforts to be a University that makes a positive and effective contribution to Ireland as Sunday Times “University of the Year 2015”. This award reflects our commitment to an unparalleled student experience, our sector-leading graduate employability, our industry-relevant, award-winning research and our deep and genuine community engagement. Our staff and students and external partners are responsible for this accolade and work every day to make UL an exceptional and distinctive institution.”
“As one benchmark of UL’s distinctiveness, our 70% graduate employment rate for 2013 primary degree-holders which is a massive 19% higher than the average for the seven universities in Ireland. That is part of what we call the UL Edge – and it is something of which this university is very proud. Our most recent graduate survey revealed that more than 7 out of 10 of our graduates are going into direct employment. And most of the rest go on to further study and research,” continued Professor Barry.
Sharon Forde, Annaghdown, Co. Galway, Aisling Barnes, Corbally, Limerick and Lorraine Higgins, Abbeyknockmoy, Co. Galway who graduated with Masters in Human Resource Management at the University of Limerick Winter conferring ceremony.
This week will see the conferring ceremony of the first cohort of teachers to finish the Professional Diploma in Mathematics through the National Centre for Excellence in Maths and Science Teaching and Learning (NCE-MSTL) at UL. This special Conferring Ceremony which is individual to just this programme will take place on Saturday the 24th of January 2015 to accommodate the teachers. The programme was fully funded by the Department of Education and Skills as part of the national strategy to support the implementation of Project Maths and improve standards in mathematics education in post-primary schools by upskilling out-of-field teachers of mathematics.
There are a number of other firsts among the graduates this week, the first cohort of interna-tional students to complete the MSc Nursing Studies will be conferred with their degrees as well as the first class to graduate from the is Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
This week 1831 graduates will receive awards from the University of Limerick in a range of disciplines including, Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences, Business, Education & Health Sciences, Engineering & Science. 183 international students are among this week’s graduates hailing from 20 countries worldwide.
Some 74 PhDs will also be awarded as part of UL’s commitment to Fourth Level Education in Ireland.
