CKI Team
Feel free to contact the CKI team with any ideas or queries you may have.
- The general email address is cki@nuigalway.ie or phone
- The CKI offices are based in the Arts Millennium building on the main campus grounds, just off Newcastle Road and Distillery Road. For maps see the NUI Galway homepage at www.nuigalway.ie
Team Members and Contact Details |
Lorraine McIlrath
Since 2004 Lorraine McIlrath has coordinated the Community Knowledge Initiative (CKI) at the National University of Ireland Galway. There she is responsible for developing and supporting civic engagement activities across the university, with the CKI team, including service learning and student volunteering. She is Principal Investigator (PI) of Campus Engage, a national Irish network to support civic engagement within higher education in Ireland (http://www.campusengage.ie). Since 2010, she has been a member partner in a nine university EU Tempus Funded Project to support the introduction of service learning to five universities in Jordan and Lebanon entitled the Tawasol Project (http://www.tawasol.org) She spent the previous ten years in Northern Ireland where she pursued postgraduate studies exploring the role of the media in contested societies. After which she became a Lecturer at the University of Ulster’s UNESCO Centre. Primarily she taught courses on the Northern Ireland conflict and peace process which underpinned service learning. In addition, she was worked on the development of the Northern Ireland curricula framework for ‘Local and Global Citizenship’ in partnership with the Citizenship Foundation, UNESCO Centre and CCEA and published a ‘Resource Directory’ (2002) for all schools in Northern Ireland.
She has consulted for the British Council in Russia - supporting the development of the College for Multicultural Education in Sochi on the Black Sea - and the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) in the US – as Programme Director in Northern Ireland. Lorraine is co-editor of the recently published 'Higher Education and Civic Engagement: International Perspectives' (2007) and ‘Mapping Civic Engagement within Higher Education in Ireland’ (2009).
Ann Lyons
Ann Lyons is project manager and network coordinator for the SIF-funded network 
project, Campus Engage, a joint initiative of NUI Galway, UCD, DCU, NUI Maynooth and UL. She is responsible for setting up and coordinating a network of Higher Education Institutes with the purpose of sharing knowledge and experience in the area of civic engagement in higher education.
Lorraine Tansey
Lorraine Tansey is the Student Volunteer Coordinator of the Community Knowledge Initiative. Lorraine has a BA in Legal Science and Sociological & Political Studies and completed her LLB. As the coordinator of NUI Galway’s student volunteering programme, ALIVE, Lorraine has developed a number of resources to support student volunteers. Lorraine’s current areas of interest include student engagement, citizenship development and the role of third level institutions in active citizenship. Lorraine is the Chairperson of the Professional Association of Volunteer Managers Ireland and sits on the Board of Volunteering Ireland. Lorraine is a member of the national steering group for the European Year of Volunteering 2011.
Breda Casey
Breda Casey is the Going to College Coordinator with the Community Knowledge Initiative. The Going to College two-year pilot project will support the civic engagement of persons with intellectual disabilities through access to inclusive third level education at NUI Galway. The pilot project will draw on the considerable strengths and resources of NUI Galway and will be guided by UNESCO’s guidelines on inclusive education and the views and opinions of persons with intellectual disabilities and parents and families. The project is a collaboration between the UNESCO Chair, Child & Family Research Centre at NUI Galway, the Community Knowledge Initiative at NUI Galway and the National Federation of Voluntary Bodies Providing Services to People with Intellectual Disability. We look forward to welcoming our first students to NUI Galway in September 2011.
Mary Bernard
the UK before moving back to Galway and working in the administrative field. Mary's work is primarily focused on the activities of CKI although she also provides general assistance and support to the CELT team where appropriate. Mary handles all general queries regarding CKI's activities. She liaises with departments and organises CKI events. Before joining the CKI at NUI Galway, Mary was with ICE and worked within NUI Galway in various departments. One of her first tasks with CKI was helping to organise the 3rd Annual Teaching & Learning Conference in June 2005 entitled Civic Engagement and Service Learning: Universities, Students and Community. Iain MacLabhrainn
Iain MacLabhrainn is the Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT) at the National University of Ireland Galway since 2002. He is a member of the Higher Education Academy (UK) and the American Association for Higher Education. Originally holding a PhD in Physics and working as a researcher, lecturer and Reader in this subject, he has spent the last ten years working and researching on student learning and the purposes of higher education. A committed volunteer (with the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne and the Community Education service in Glasgow) his Centre currently hosts the Community Knowledge Initiative supported by a generous donation from a major philanthropic trust. He is responsible for advising and managing the CKI Project as it becomes a mainstream activity within NUI Galway.