University of Limerick Access Office

Exams

ulaccess — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 09:22:49 +0000

This is just a quick note to say GOOD LUCK to all of you who are doing exams over the next 2 weeks. Remember eat good food, get lots of sleep and dont stress too much!!

April Showers

ulaccess — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:44:17 +0000

Ok so I know it’s been a while but we have been very busy in the Access Office

First and foremost we must welcome a new member of staff – her name is Laura Walsh and she will be with us for a little while.

Also we welcome our new Access Manager his name is Pat Hoey and he comes from DCU and he is now the manager of The Mature Student Office, The Disability Liaison office and ourselves in the Access Office.

We hope that you both enjoy your time here and we look forward to working with you!!!!

There have been 3 sets of scholarships awarded, from Aughinish Alumina, The University of Limerick Alumni Association and from Anglo Irish Bank – you’d think that at this rate we only got sponsorship from institutions beginning with the letter A! There are going to be some new scholarships announced in the near future so watch this space!!!!

The HEAR and Access ULDirect closing dates have come and gone and we have been inundated with applications. John is busy beavering away with our partners making assessments.

The AccessCampus would like to congratulate and commend the efforts of the students (Post Grad and second level) who are working in the Study Club, those who have just applied for mature student status and the Diploma in Drugs and Alcohol Studies course which is in its final few weeks. Well done to the continued efforts in the Women’s Studies Tutorials.

Some of our new Student Ambassadors have made visits to schools with Dee. They got on very well and really enjoyed the experience.

Our Quality Review process has started up again so that should keep me out of trouble for a little while.

Joanna

Welcome Back

ulaccess — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:20:33 +0000

Welcome back to all our students and a special welcome to our new students who started on the Access to University Course yesterday, all of us in the Access Office wish them luck and we hope that they will enjoy their time here and get the most out of it.

Money, Money, Money!!!

ulaccess — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:32:03 +0000

This week its all about the money here in the Access office! The closing date for the Student Assistance Fund was yesterday and we had many hopeful applicants dropping in and sending in forms. We wish you all luck with your applications.

Also the Bank of Ireland Millennuim Scholars Trust is now open, so we will be busy nominating students in the the next couple of months.

And finally the Higher Education Authority has launched a new website called www.studentfinance.ie which will be going live on Monday (21st January) and it will have lots of information on finances for Further and Higher Education.

But alas none of the money is coming in my direction so my retirement in Barbados will have to wait for a while!!

Bye for now

Joanna

New Year New HEAR!!!

ulaccess — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 14:43:31 +0000

Happy New Year to you from all of us in the Access office. As we have now just about recovered from the overload of Christmas partying, and all the chocolates are now gone (except for the strawberry ones of course) its time to get down to some real work.

Applications for the 2008 HEAR scheme went out to schools this week and if you are in a linked school you can get one from your Guidance Counsellor.

Applications for the Access ULDirect are still available from the office and you can download them from our website!

The Closing date for completed applications for both these entry routes is the 7^th March 2008 ( not 2007 as in last post L Ooops!)

Joanna

At Last!

ulaccess — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 15:42:51 +0000

Ok so I know that Claire has gone and I’m taking over the blog, sorry I haven’t been as diligent as she was at keeping things up to date but I have finally conquered my fear of breaking the internet. So here is the news!

Quality

We did very well in our Quality Review, we in the Access office were commended for our working with Partnerships in the AccessCampus and with the Shannon Consortium, our lovely offices and the quality of our supporting documentation in our Self Assessment Report!

Student Ambassador Programme

Dee has been working very hard to get this up and running and we are very proud to have 20 students who have been selected to be Student Ambassadors this year! They will be out visiting schools next semester.

HEAR

John is busy visiting schools at the moment bringing the information about the new HEAR scheme to linked schools. Watch out for him if he hasn’t visited your school already he will be there soon!

Access ULDirect

The forms are now available from the Access Office and the closing date is the 7^th March 2007.

AccessCampus

Donal is to be congratualted for his hard work in getting scholarships for the students who are taking part in the AccessCampus Study Club.

So if you have any questions, comments or anything strange, wonderful or exciting to share with us – do let us know.

Joanna

Quality (Street?)

ulaccess — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 08:42:37 +0000

Have you noticed that the Christmas tins of sweets are in the supermarkets already – Selection Boxes and everything!!! Well, an innocent box of Quality Street may not mean anything to you – but here in Access, it reminds us of one of our main focues at the moment, QUALITY!!!! (Nothing subtle about the reminder really is there…)

We are part of the Student Affairs Division of the Universiy and together with the other units of Student Affairs we are implementing a quality management system – designed to improve the service we provide to all our customers. One of the major aspects of this system is to capture feedback from our customers and build this feedback into our work – a method of continual improvement that once we get used to it will become second nature to all of us. But, for now, if you do have any feedback (big or small, good or bad) we would be delighted to hear from you. You can use the Contact Us form on the website!

PS This is my last blog post as I am handing the mantle over to Joanna. Ciao for now, Claire.

All shiny and new!

ulaccess — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 15:30:55 +0000

New Website

It has taken some time but over the past few weeks we have been letting our new website go quietly live. But live it really is and I hope you will go and check it out. www.ul.ie/access Feel free to post some feedback to us using the Contact Us page on the site.

New staff

We are preparing to welcome Deirdre Nevin as the newest member of our team. Deirdre will be responsible for the Student Ambassador Programme and will be starting on Oct. 8th. We are all looking forward to meeting her!

We recently said cheerio to Denis Staunton who has returned to UCC and in October we will say auf wiedersehen to Debs O’Halloran and Claire McCarthy. So many leaving dos, so little time!

Undergraduates are the core of our University!

ulaccess — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 09:58:55 +0000

Prof. Don Barry, President University of LimerickProf. Don Barry, President of the University of Limerick, yesterday gave his Inaugral Address to the University entitled “Renewing the Core – Towards an Enhanced Undergraduate Curriculum for Ireland in the 21^st Century”. Access Staff went along to hear Prof. Barry’s request for reflection by the campus community on educating our undergraduates slightly more broadly – ensuring they develop key lifelong learning skils to enable them to successfully transfer to many different career paths. We, in the Access Office, would be delighted to hear from our students how they would feel about future undergraduates following a broader programme of study. Or, of course, you can also email the President directly with your thoughts!

Hope to see you all at the “Casual Masked Ball” (ie the welcome back party with the Masks n Jeans dress code!). See News section on the website for more info!

Welcome Class of 2011!

ulaccess — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:11:46 +0000

Welcome to all the new students of the University of Limerick, currently completing their Orientation programmes.

A particular welcome to the new Access students, all 85 of them, who joined us last week for their Transition to University Course – a chance for them to get to know the campus before the rest of the undergraduate community returns. We hope you all enjoyed TUC ’07 and we look forward to getting to know you even better in the coming weeks, months and years. Don’t be strangers and pop into the office and say hello when you are passing or if you think there is anything we can help you with!