‘Meeting Students Where They Are: Higher Education Responses to Evolving Student Needs’ research report launch.

The students who arrive on our campuses today are more likely than ever to be commuting from home, balancing study with substantial paid employment, and navigating financial pressures, all challenges that recent generations did not face to the same extent.

These increasingly defining features of participation in Irish higher education challenge institutions to respond by aligning their structures, policies, supports, and teaching practices to reflect these realities.

It is this shared context that prompted a collaborative project between Maynooth University’s (MU) Centre for Teaching and Learning and Dundalk Institute of Technology’s (DkIT) Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching supported by the Higher Educations Authority’s Strategic Alignment for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (SATLE) Pathfinder fund.

The research study set out to systematically examine how higher education institutions are responding effectively to these evolving student realities, and to translate that evidence into actionable activities for practitioners, leaders, and policymakers at Maynooth University, Dundalk Institute of Technology, and more broadly across the Irish higher education sector. This report launch workshop will share key findings from the literature, including national and international examples of HE responses to these student evolving realities, and offer opportunities for attendees to discuss the research findings. It will be lead by Dr Ciara O'Farrell, Senior Research Fellow.

This event is a collaborative project between DkIT and Maynooth University supported by HEA TSAF funding.

Description supplied by the event organiser.