GMIT and Canadian College – Joint International Hospitality Course

GMIT’s Galway International Hotel School and St Lawrence College, Ontario, Canada, have signed a new articulation agreement which will support the global tourism industry by offering an international hospitality award to Irish and Canadian students and is due to begin later this year.

International Hospitality Award

The new course marks an important milestone for both colleges since GMIT and SLC first signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2017. Both partners currently collaborate on Contemporary Arts courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The new course will allow students from SLC to study in Galway for one semester and GMIT students to study for one semester in SLC at their Kingston Campus in Ontario, from 2021. SLC students who successfully complete their Diploma in Canada will be eligible to complete their bachelor degree (L7) and BA Hons (L8) in International Hotel Management at GMIT.

Great Partnerships

Cáit Noone, Head of the Galway International Hotel School (GIHS) and Vice President for International Engagement in GMIT, outlines the importance of this development for the School. “All great partnerships required the dedication and expertise of great teams and this agreement is no different. A dedicated team from GMIT led by Head of Department Jacinta Dalton first visited SLC in May 2018 with Culinary Arts lecturer Cormac Handy and Hotel Management Programme Chair Colin Gilligan. The SLC team was led by Assistant Dean Stephen Finnagan and his colleagues Beverley Bowley and Brad Greenwood. Academic oversight was another critical component of this development and was provided by GMIT’s Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr Michael Hannon in GMIT and Eileen De Courcy in SLC.”

“This is the first international partnership Galway International Hotel School (GIHS) has undertaken in Canada and I am very grateful to Don Young, former VP International Education at SLC for agreeing to develop the initial MOU in 2017 and to SLC President and CEO Glenn Vollebregt for asking GMIT to consider collaborating on a hotel management award.”

“I am also very grateful to the HEA who awarded Galway International Hotel School an initial Government of Ireland Academic Mobility scholarship which was very important when we started this project.”

Anne McConnell-Strong Experience Ireland Fund

St. Lawrence College President & Chief Executive Officer Glenn Vollebregt noted that this agreement is supported by a gift from Mr Elmer Strong, in memory of his late wife Anne McConnell, formerly from Galway, Ireland.

“St Lawrence College has seen a growing number of students participate in our many articulation agreements with the Irish institutes, but the Anne McConnell-Strong Experience Ireland Fund is the first of its kind in not only helping us to prepare students to learn in Ireland, but to also make the opportunity possible to students who may not have been able to participate,” said Mr. Vollebregt.