Professor Shearer West has started her role as President and Vice-Chancellor at the University of Nottingham. She is the seventh Vice-Chancellor in the University’s history and the first woman in the role.
Greeting staff and students today as she began her tenure she said: “I am a strong believer in the value of a comprehensive university like Nottingham. We produce research that provides new discoveries across the full disciplinary spectrum, fosters different ways of thinking and benefits society, the economy and our quality of life; and we offer an education that promotes globally aware, responsible citizens who are prepared for a changing world of work.
“I have every confidence that we can work together to ensure that Nottingham adapts, thrives and retains its reputation for an entrepreneurial spirit and world-changing work, building on Jesse Boot’s foundational principles.”
An academic art historian, Professor West has also held a number of significant leadership roles in universities and higher education – including, most recently, as Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Sheffield.
Growing up in a small town in south-west Virginia, USA, Professor West was the first person in her family to go to university. She studied for a degree in Art History and English at the College of William and Mary and so began a life-long love of culture and the arts.
After undertaking a PhD in Art History at St Andrews, Professor West worked as an editor for the Grove Dictionary of Art before taking up her first academic post at the University of Leicester.
Posts at the University of Birmingham and Oxford University followed as well as four years working closely with government as Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Professor West has authored and edited nine books and published a number of academic articles. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Higher Education Academy and the Royal Historical Society, and has held two visiting Fellowships at Yale University.
She also has a number of international roles, most recently acting as main panel chair for the national research assessment exercise for Humanities in Norway and serving on the steering group to introduce impact into the Excellence in Research (ERA) exercise in Australia.
In her first few months in office the new Vice-Chancellor will be meeting staff, students and stakeholders regionally and internationally – across the University’s campuses in Nottingham, China and Malaysia.
She will give an inaugural lecture in December where she will outline her vision for the future of the university.
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More information is available from Josephine Dionisappu, PR & Communications Manager at the University of Nottingham Malaysia on josephine.dionisappu@nottingham.edu.my, +6 (03) 8924 8746 or Liz Cass, Head of News at The University UK.
Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with a “distinct” approach to internationalisation, which rests on those full-scale campuses in China and Malaysia, as well as a large presence in its home city.’ (Times Good University Guide 2016). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and the winner of ‘Outstanding Support for Early Career Researchers’ at the Times Higher Education Awards 2015. It is ranked in the world’s top 75 by the QS World University Rankings 2015/16. More than 97 per cent of research at The University of Nottingham is recognised internationally and it is 8th in the UK by research power according to the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It has been voted the world’s greenest campus for four years running, according to Greenmetrics Ranking of World Universities.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest-ever fundraising campaign, is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future.
Posted on 2nd October 2017