University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin
|
|
Template:IrishUniInfoBox University College Dublin - National University of Ireland, Dublin - more commonly University College Dublin (UCD) - is Ireland's largest university, with over 20,000 students. The university is located in Dublin, Ireland.
The university is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland. The terms of the Universities Act, 1997 were used to rename the university after resolution by the Senate of the National University of Ireland.
| Contents |
Origins
The university was was founded in December 2 1908 by Royal Charter, as University College, Dublin a constituent college of the National University of Ireland. The university college is the lineal successor of the earlier Catholic University of Ireland founded on 18 May 1854 and lead by its rector Cardinal John Henry Newman, which in 1882 first became known as University College Dublin as part of the Royal University of Ireland.
Confusingly University College, Dublin was not part of the University of Dublin whose only college is University College Dublin's rival, Trinity College Dublin. It was proposed during the late 1960s that the two colleges would merge under a newly reconstituted "University of Dublin", but this did not happen, see University of Dublin. Additionally in the early 1970s their was a proposal for university reorganisation to see the university college created as a university in its own right.
Move to Belfield
In the 1950s, University College, Dublin began a move from its Earlsfort Terrace campus, the previous headquarters of the Royal University of Ireland, to a new 350 acre (1.4 km²) park campus at Belfield in a suburb on the south side of Dublin, this was part of a plan which started in the mid 1930s which was to encourage the creation of a modern campus university style and took several decades to implement. By 2003, most of the university had moved out to Belfield. One of its previous locations, the Royal College of Science in Merrion Street is now the location of the renovated Irish Government Buildings, where the office of the Taoiseach (prime minister) is located. University College, Dublin also had a site in Glasnevin for much of the last century, the Albert Agriculture College, which is now the location of Dublin City University.
Reputation
UCD is highly regarded internationally with many of its graduates going on to post-graduate studies at other top international universities, particularly in the United States and Britain. Among its most accomplished alumni are the writer James Joyce, former Goldman Sachs chairman Peter Sutherland (who was also chairman of BP and was previously head of the WTO, European Union Commissioner and the Attorney-General of Ireland), Unilever chairman Niall Fitzgerald, former Heinz chairman Dr. Sir Tony O'Reilly, the fourth President of India V V Giri, and four of the last five taoisigh (Irish prime ministers): John Bruton, Albert Reynolds, Dr. Garret Fitzgerald and Charles Haughey. The current taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, attended UCD as a student but did not graduate.
In 1964 the university became the first European university to offer the MBA degree. The graduate business school, called the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business [1] (http://www.ucd.ie/smurfitschool), was sponsored by the packaging tycoon Michael Smurfit. It is Ireland's best known business school and always scores highly in league tables of international business schools. There is also a separate undergraduate business school, the Quinn School of Business [2] (http://www.ucd.ie/quinnschool). This was sponsored by Lochlann Quinn, the chairman of AIB and an alumnus of the university.
The students union in the college feels the need to have significant stances on socio-economic affairs in Ireland. For example, in 2003, the students union managed to achieve a ban of coca-cola products sold in the UCD student shops after two referendums. This topic arose due to alleged worker abuses on the part of coca-cola in Columbia. The UCDSU reaction was reported widely in the Irish media. Other third level institutions have considered boycotting the product. Despite the ban, Coke products are still available in non-SU run shops on campus, as are Nestle products, the subject of a previously introduced ban based on the behaviour of the company promoting powdered milk formula in Africa. This ban is still a source of controversy as Irish Unions were against the ban, and some students feel that by removing free choice, the boycott seems imposed rather supported. Proponents of the Boycott argue that voting to ban Coca Cola is an excercise of collective freedom of choice, as the shops are owned by the students.
Related companies
The most prominent university related company is the IE Domain Registry, many of the universities academics continue to sit on the board of directors. The university originally gained control of the .ie domain in the late 1980s.
There are a number of related companies, many concentrated as the NovaUCD (http://www.ucd.ie/nova/) initiative, to commercialise research results and opportunities; many of these are reflective of the universities expertise in the life sciences. These companies include Cytrea (http://www.cytrea.ie), a chemistry group that specialises in cyclodextrin formulations for pharmaceuticals. Analytical Drug and Data (ADD) has over 25 years experience in brain research. Celtic Catalysts (http://www.celticcatalysts.com/) is involved in chiral chemistry research. Enzolve is a enzyme and protein commercialisation group; Ildana Biotech is a joint group with Dublin City University. Berand (http://www.berand.ie/) concentrates on the development of new chemicals for disease treatment.
See also
External links
- Official site (http://www.ucd.ie)
- Students Union website (http://www.ucdsu.net)