Welcome to the Graduate School in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences
Welcome to the Graduate School in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences (CACSSS). At present there are well over 300 research students in the CACSSS. The CACSSS Graduate School, formed in 2008, aims to enhance the student experience and provide a range of courses and facilities to offer a high quality environment and research culture.
The School works with the College, twenty-three Departments, the Student’s Union, the CACCSS Graduate Studies Committee, the Academic Council Graduate Studies Committee (chaired by Professor David Ryan), and the Dean of Graduate Studies, Professor Alan Kelly, along with the UCC Graduate Studies Office, headed by Michelle Nelson, to enhance the graduate research experience and to develop new initiatives to ensure that the CACSSS provides a vibrant research culture and environment. The Graduate School includes an Executive, which is made up of staff members who deliver postgraduate training and organize events geared towards research students in the humanities and social sciences. Undoubtedly, the quality of the research environment and culture will make a significant difference to your graduate education and we look forward to working and communicating with all graduate students to continually develop our programmes. We want to ensure that your graduate experience in the CACSSS is as rewarding as possible and fulfils your expectations and those associated with the academic and non-academic career options you choose in the future.
The Graduate School has developed a range of research training modules to address the generic skills agenda, the process of doing a PhD, a range of career orientation workshops (in conjunction with the Careers Office) and a series of graduate education modules. Research training and education is a priority within Fourth Level Ireland and the Graduate School endeavours to provide a stimulating and rewarding programme in collaboration with other Irish and European institutions, where possible. The Graduate School co-ordinates its activities with the Graduate Research Education Programmes on Texts, Culture and Contexts, the Institute of Social Sciences and the Digital Arts and Humanities programme.
Moreover, the Graduate School aims to complement the various Departments' graduate education and cultural programmes and to provide you with the intellectual, social and networking opportunities across the College and institution to facilitate a dialogue from the perspectives of a variety of different disciplines and individual experience.
We maintain a scholarship scheme that aims to reward and retain our best students, recruit new students into graduate education from UCC, Ireland and abroad and to offer on a competitive basis the funding to complete PhD research projects. Students within the various Departments in the College of Arts, Celtic Studies & Social Sciences have been awarded significant numbers of PhD Scholarships from the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences.
In addition to the work spaces and facilities offered by Departments we provide a number of work stations in the nearby Sheraton Court facility and in the Berkeley Centre in the Boole Library for exclusive use by CACSSS research students.
We are located on the ground floor of the O’Rahilly Building. The Graduate School Office is run by Marie O’Donovan in G26 and my office is G26a. Please feel free to contact us to discuss issues of concern or to provide us with information relating to graduate functions.
Dr. Silvia Ross, Associate Dean, Graduate School, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences
