Professor Louise Crowley
Louise Crowley is a Professor in Family Law at the School of Law, UCC. In 2016 Louise developed the Bystander Intervention initiative at UCC which seeks to enhance awareness of the dangers of the normalisation of sexual misconduct and to empower students to actively challenge this behaviour. The programme is available to all staff and students at UCC and is being rolled out to Third Level institutions across the sector. Louise was a member of the Expert Group that produced the National Framework to End Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions, published in April 2019. In November 2019 Louise was awarded HEA funding of €350,00 to lead a 2-year UCC cross-campus response to the requirements of the National Framework which will demonstrate a gold standard implementation of the UCC Framework Action Plan. At the behest of the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science Simon Harris, Louise developed an online Bystander Intervention training session for every HEI to deliver to all first-year students in their 2020/2021 orientation. Finally Louise is currently working with second level schools across Cork and with the Youth Sector in Ireland to develop age appropriate bystander training programmes for a younger audience.
Dr Emer Clifford
Dr Emer Clifford is the Sexual Violence Framework Project Manager at University College Cork. She works together with the Sexual Violence Framework team, the Bystander Intervention team, the National Framework Steering Group, and the University Task Force, towards the delivery of a gold standard response to the Framework for Consent in Higher Education Institutions: Safe, Respectful, Supportive and Positive – Ending Sexual Violence and Harassment in Irish Higher Education Institutions. Additionally, Emer sits on the National Women’s Council Ireland (NWCI) National Advisory Committee (NAC), where she collaborates with colleagues from across the sector, to develop shared responses and policies in relation to sexual harassment and violence on college campuses. Prior to being appointed Sexual Violence Framework Project Manager, Emer worked on both the local and national roll out of UCC’s Bystander Intervention Programme and in the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Unit. She has over eleven years of experience working in the disability sector, as well as five years teaching in UCC’s Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies.
