The lists below represent the events and activities organised in UCC on topics that relate to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.*  These complement the events coordinated by the Equality Committee, the EDI Unit, the Athena SWAN Project and the University of Sanctuary Committee as part of Equality Week and Refugee Week, as well as other events throughout the year, such as the President's Athena SWAN Symposium.

If your event is not on this list but should be, please contact ediunit@ucc.ie

*N.B. compilation of this list commenced in autumn 2018.  We would welcome information on events that predate this.

October 2021

Below is a list of EDI-related events that took place in UCC during October 2021

October 6th: The Department of English's research seminar series welcomed Ariane Balizet, Texas Christian University to speak on "Fair Women, Red Hands, Black Will(s): Domestic Tragedy’s Racial Logic".  This presentation considers the relationship between blood, race, and the genre of domestic tragedy, focusing on Thomas Middleton’s A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608) as well as the anonymous Arden of Faversham (1592) and A Warning for Fair Women (1599). In these plays, whiteness comprises domestic identity based in racial logics of innocence, purity, and lineage. Spectacles of domestic disorder in bloodstains, dumbshows, or staged violence articulate the racial logics at work in early modern ideals of home and family.

October 7th: The Gender Study Group of Development Studies Association Ireland (DSAI) organised a webinar on the topic: Do Women in Afghanistan Need Saving?  Speakers: Dr Nasrin Khandoker (NUIG): Do Afghan Women Need saving?, Dr Paola Rivetti (DCU): Beyond false binaries: Neo-imperialism in Afghanistan, and Chair: Prof Eileen Connolly, DCU

October 14th: Launch of a monograph by Carlos Garrido Castellano of the Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies Department, Art Activism for an Anticolonial Future, which explores the many ways in which antiracist and anticolonial thought and creativity can be approached to make sense of our present. 

October 14th: As part of Community Week, the Glucksman wass pleased to host an online talk with artist Bríd Murphy today 14 October at 1pm. Bríd’s current work as part of our offsite Graft project is a thoughtful provocation about affordable accommodation and Ireland’s ongoing housing crisis.

October 15th: On October 15th, Developmental Language Disorder Awareness Day, the UCC Quad lit up in purple later today to support this. DLD affects about 1 in every 14 people. It is a lifelong and often hidden condition. There are students in your lectures who have DLD, many of whom may not know about it, but are struggling with oral and written language. It can affect their academic work, as well as their social and emotional wellbeing.  For more information on the condition - see www.radld.org.

Octobe 19th: Mná@UCC, the UCC Women’s Network, held their first speaker event of 2021/22, "‘You’ll never work in this town again…" with UCC alumna Dr. Mary Favier.  Dr. Favier discussed her journey through medicine and medical politics starting with her role in the junior doctors' strike of 1987, via her beginnings in North Kerry, through Doctors for Choice, Repeal, President of the ICGP and her current role on NPHET.

October 20th:  Global Ethics Day webinar from University Ethics Committee presented "Research Ethics for our Times: Addressing Ethical Issues that Arise from Big Data and Data Sharing"

October 21st: Launch of "The Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe" (Routledge, 2021) edited by James Kapaló and Kinga Povedák, one of key outputs of the Hidden Galleries ERC project that was hosted in the Study of Religions Department at UCC from 2016-2021.  This book addresses the complex intersection of secret police operations and the formation of the religious underground in communist-era Eastern Europe. It discusses how religious groups were perceived as dangerous to the totalitarian state whilst also being extremely vulnerable and yet at the same time very resourceful. It explores how this particular dynamic created the concept of the "religious underground" and produced an extremely rich secret police archival record. In a series of studies from across the region, the book explores the historical and legal context of secret police entanglement with religious groups, presents case studies on particular anti-religious operations and groups, offers methodological approaches to the secret police materials for the study of religions, and engages in contemporary ethical and political debates on the legacy and meaning of secret police archives in post-communism.

October 21st: The Department of Music is pleased to welcome UCC PhD candidate Clare Geraghty, PhD candidate in the department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies at University College Cork, as the first speaker of our 2021-2022 FUAIM Lecture Series.  The lecture: "Queer feminist hip hop: ‘Intersectional beings’, Krudxs Cubensi"  Abstract: Cuban hip hop collective, Krudxs Cubensi, represent queer people, women, migrants, and ‘intersectional beings' with their ‘fierce feminist hip hop and Afro-Cuban flavours’. Krudxs Cubensi disrupt popular representations of marginalised identities by using performance as means of expressing queer joy. This presentation explores the ways in which their music and activist work engages with points of conflict in feminist studies and activism.

October 22nd: 8th National Child Protection and Welfare Social Work Conference (SWCONF21) with keynotes and contributors: Dr Helen Beckett, Safer Young Lives Research Centre, Professor Jill Duerr Berrick, University of California, Berkeley, Gerard Brophy, TUSLA, Child and Family Agency, Professor Anna Gupta, Royal Holloway, Claire McGettrick, CLANN Project / Magdalene Names Project / UCD, Professor Conor O’Mahony, School of Law, UCC / Special Rapporteur for Child Protection, Sinead Quinlan, Stand Up Comedian / The Den, RTÉ, Harry Venning, Writer and Cartoonist.  This conference was a collaboration between @UCCsocialwork, School of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork, TUSLA, the Child and Family Agency and the Irish Association of Social Workers (Southern Branch SIG).

October 25th: The Humanitarian Action Study Group of Development Studies Association of Ireland continued with the Afghan Women’s Series to discuss strategies and experiences of engaging with issues relating to women’s rights in contemporary Afghanistan.  Speakers are Wazhma Frogh, Peace and Conflict Practitioner and Mediator, Kevin Schumacher, Deputy Executive Director, Women For Afghan Women (WAW), Jelena Bjelica, Co-director & Senior Analyst, Afghanistan Analysts Network, Dr. Ludwika Wlodek, Lecturer, University of Warsaw.

September 2021

Below is a list of EDI-related areas that took place in UCC in September 2021.

During September, Human Resources Staff Development ran two of their regular Trans Awareness: The Basics training sessions for all staff.

On September 10th, a webinar ‘From Academia to Pandemia?: Reflections on the pivot to remote learning and its implications for Higher Education’  was held, the aim of which was to initiate a dialogue about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the associated ‘pivot’ to remote or blended education on the academic community, with particular focus on staff and student well-being and the core university missions of teaching and research. The seminar will commence with three 15-minute presentations by academics working in this area, followed by discussant contributions representing a student, a digital education, and a union perspective. Speakers included Professor Kalpana Shankar, School of Information and Communication Studies, UCD, Dr Karl Kitching, School of Education, University of Birmingham, Dr Darren Webb, School of Education, University of Sheffield, Asha Woodhouse, President, UCC Students’ Union, 2021/22, Sarah Thelen, Instructional Designer, Office of the Vice-President for Teaching and Learning, UCC and Frank Jones, General Secretary, Irish Federation of University Teachers, facilitated by Dr Laurence Davis, Department of Government and Politics, UCC.

 During the week of September 20th, UCC Quad was lit in blue for International Week of Deaf People.

On September 22nd, Dr Vittorio Bufacchi in Philosophy chaired a 'meet the authors' event on this very important book on the Magdalene laundries: "Ireland and the Madalene Laundries: A campaign for justice".  The authors in question were: Mari Steed, Co-Founder Justice for Magdalenes and Co-Founder Adoption Rights Alliance, Assoc. Prof. James M. Smith, Boston College, Claire McGettrick, Irish Research Council Doctoral Scholar, UCD School of Sociology, Katherine O’Donnell, Asoc. Prof. History of Ideas, UCD School of Philosophy & Dr Maeve O'Rourke, Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway 

The School of Religions kicked off the new academic year's Study of Religions Departmental Research Seminar on Thursday 23 September 2021 from 4-5pm with a presentation by Alice Ahern on her PhD research titled: "The Reclamation of Feminine Wisdom in the Irish Neo-Shamanic Milieu".

On September 29th, The Glucksman shop took part in the Children's Books Ireland campaign Free To Be Me in partnership with KPMG Ireland!  Free To Be Me celebrates diversity, representation, and inclusion in books for children and young people aged 0–18, to ensure equity and visibility in both school and public libraries, bookshops, and shelves in the home.  The project showcases the rich diversity of modern Ireland and amplifies lesser-heard voices in children's literature. The Free To Be Me: Diversity, Inclusion and Representation Reading Guide contains over 360 expert book recommendations, all chosen for their portrayal of diverse themes and characters.  https://www.glucksmanshop.com/search/freetobeme/

On September 30th, Joe Finnerty in Applied Social Studies was involved in the launch of the Simon Communities of Ireland research reports "Sustaining the Accelerant: The response of Simon Communities to Four Waves of the Covid-19 Pandemic.' and 'The Experiences of  Simon Community Service Users During the Pandemic'. These reports are phase 2 &3, of an examination of the frontline response to COVID.  The research was undertaken by Joe Finnerty, Mark Cullinane and Margaret Buckley of the School of Applied Social Studies at UCC.  The first report 'Systems Accelerant' by Joe Finnerty and Margaret Buckley was published earlier this year.  The panel included (chair) Wayne Stanley, Head of Communications and Advocacy, Simon Community of Ireland, Joe Finnerty, School of Applied Social Studies UCC & Ruth Owen, Deputy Director Feansta.

Archive

2020/21

2019/20

2018/19