2010 press releases
Posted 27 January 2010
AIT President Launches Blog
The President of Athlone Institute of Technology (AIT) has entered into the world of social media with the launch today of a new blog. The President’s Notebook blog can be found at http://aitpresident.blogspot.com.
“Social networking has created a valuable space for the sharing of opinions and the generation of debate,” said Prof. Ciarán Ó Catháin. “Higher education in Ireland is itself the focus of a strategic review at present, so it is natural that people will be energised about that discussion. This new blog offers a forum for communicating about the future development of the third level sector in Ireland, or indeed any aspect of life which intersects with AIT or Athlone,” he said.
One of Prof. Ó Catháin’s first blogs is a response to remarks made last week by the former European commissioner, Peter Sutherland, in which he said that he disagreed with the even distribution of resources between top universities and a “Ballygobackwards RTC”. In his post, the AIT President refutes the suggestion that there is anything backwards about institutes of technology, writing that: “Excellence is not a virtue exclusive to rarefied campuses, the achievements of IoT students, graduates and researchers over four decades are testament to that.”
The introduction of a president’s blog is the latest foray into the world of Web 2.0 for the Athlone college. The institute also has official pages on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The institute introduced a new website in November, which has witnessed very high levels of traffic in the run-in to the CAO deadline of 1 February.
