Dr Tom Collins, director of the Dundalk Institute of Technology, has been appointed chairman of the Council of Directors of the Institutes of Technology for 2005. Collins academic background is in sociology. He is a graduate of National University of Ireland Maynooth, where he completed his PhD degree in 1987. He has been actively involved in many aspects of educational policy development in Ireland and at European level over the past decade. Collins is currently a member of the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland. He is the former chair of the National Rural Water Monitoring Committee and a former board member of the Combat Poverty Agency and the Joint Management Committee of the first Peace and Reconciliation Programme.
