Director of the National Research Centre for Psychology, Education and Emotional Intelligence outlines a vision for creating emotionally intelligent colleges

In recent decades there has been an increase in the role of formal education in empowering students’ social and emotional development. A wealth of research evidence suggests that doing so can yield tangible benefits for students and educators including increased student engagement and decreased levels of drop-out. Until recently, very little research had been conducted in an Irish context in this regard. However, Dr Aiden Carthy has been working to redress this imbalance and he has been actively researching and publishing in this field for the past number of years. Dr Carthy directs the National Research Centre for Psychology, Education and Emotional Intelligence which is based at the Institute of Technology, Blanchardstown. His latest publication, ‘The Emotionally Intelligent College’, was released by Cambridge Scholars Publishing in 2016 and provides a synopsis of his work to date, a synthesis of current theories in the field of emotional intelligence and a tool-kit of simple exercises for use in third level educational settings, that are designed to help students develop a range of key aspects of emotional intelligence. Below is the transcript of a keynote address that Dr Carthy recently delivered at the 2016 International Conference on Engaging Pedagogy in which he discusses his research and outlines key policy changes that could help lead to the creation of emotionally intelligent colleges.