Student Experience
The student experience at university plays a crucial role in shaping academic success.
Beyond classroom lectures, engaging in extracurricular activities, forming social connections, and utilizing campus resources for personal growth are vital to support our student's well-being and motivation, whilst also improving overall academic engagement. Galway University Foundation works with our partners and various supporters to fund innovative opportunities to enhance our student's experience of their time at university.
Clubs and societies are a vital part of university life, offering a sense of community, personal growth, and opportunities for leadership.
Involvement in clubs helps students develop essential skills such as teamwork, communication, and time management, which are valuable in both their academic and professional lives.
Moreover, clubs foster a social environment, helping students build friendships and networks that can last long after graduation. They contribute to a well-rounded university experience, allowing students to thrive both personally and academically.
Our committed partners provide much needed support of our clubs and societies such as the The Bank of Ireland Society Bursary.
The Bursary promotes the valuable work of student societies, enhancing the student experience and enriching the wider community.
The aim of the award is to support the societies in organising events of social, cultural, humanitarian and educational importance. Events with creativity and originality are also especially encouraged.
The Seas Suas Programme is a peer-support initiative developed by the Chaplaincy & Pastoral Care Service at University of Galway – Ollscoil na Gaillimhe.
Established in 2014 in response to the rising number of complex student challenges, the programme aims to empower students by equipping them with skills to help themselves, recognise vulnerable peers, intervene safely, and refer them to appropriate support services.
Students have referred to Seas Suas as a “beacon of proactive response” to help students manage challenging situations.
Seas Suas has an ongoing mission to foster a more compassionate university campus by building awareness, empathy, well-being, and social responsibility through promoting bystander intervention within our campus and the broader community.
Thanks to the generous funding support offered to the Seas Suas Programme, since 2022, the Chaplaincy have successfully delivered the Programme to approximately 500 students each year.
The sessions provide vital training on topics including empathy, mental health, suicide prevention, drug and alcohol use, sexual consent and harassment, personal safety, and other topics such as bystander apathy and intolerance.
University of Galway’s Active* Consent Programme supports young people and those that are important to them (teachers, parents, college staff and policy makers) in building their knowledge of consent as a key component of positive sexual health and well-being.
The Programme creates original Irish data-led consent education training resources including workshops, eLearning modules, drama, videos, and social media campaigns for colleges, secondary schools and sports organisations.
Active* Consent grew out of an existing collaboration between Psychology and Drama and Theatre Studies at University of Galway which had the initial aim of changing student experiences and college responses around sexual consent.
With the support of the Lifes2good Foundation, four years (2019-2023) of research and implementation for the Active* Consent programme was launched at University of Galway in 2019 led by Pádraig MacNeela, Charlotte McIvor, Siobhán O’Higgins, and Kate Dawson.
This support allows Active* Consent to expand their work with third level institutions and to work with secondary schools and sports organisations. With additional funding from Rethink Ireland, the Higher Education Authority, the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, The Department of Justice, and University of Galway, Active* Consent has continued to grow since 2019.