UCD Circle of Cultures 2021

09 Dec 2021

Dr. Ailish O’Halloran, Deputy Provost, Beijing Dublin International College in collaboration with the UCD Global Experience Team, launched a new intercultural awareness programme in October 2021. This was aimed at domestic and international UCD students based in Ireland and abroad. The programme included a 90-minute session once a week for six weeks and took place via Zoom to allow for a diverse group of students across multiple locations to connect.

In total, the programme engaged 18 students, representing eight different nationalities, based on five campuses around the world. The group explored topics related to intercultural communications, design-thinking, and working in multicultural teams.

The final session included a ‘Festival of Cultures’ where student teams presented their innovative ideas to enhance intercultural awareness and engagement in UCD. A staff panel, including Prof. Colin Scott, VP Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at UCD; Dr. Linda Dowling Hetherington, Director - Assurance of Learning, UCD School of Business; Dr. Sandrine Peraldi, Assistant Professor, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics; and Alan Morgan, Entrepreneurial Specialist, UCD Innovation Academy, provided valuable commentary and feedback to the students.

When asked about aspects of the programme which helped most in relation to intercultural learning and development, two students responded as follows:

“Working in groups that had people from cultures different from your own to plan this event. Since we all had so much freedom in designing our events it led to very fruitful conversations. This gave us the opportunity to experience planning across separate cultures bringing different ideas and perspectives.”

“This program helped me in being more confident while talking to people from different cultures, being curious about other cultures. Group activities helped me a lot in actively interacting with others and learnt how to reflect on oneself.”

Due to the success of this pilot programme, further sessions will be organised for the academic year 2022/23. We hope to that both virtual and in-person offerings will be available to maximise student engagement on these important topics.