UCD Professor takes on new chief academic role at Universitas 21
Posted September 20, 2016
Professor Bairbre Redmond has been appointed Provost of Universitas 21.
Her role in (opens in a new window)Universitas 21 (U21) will be chief academic, overseeing the work of the network in student experience and mobility, education and researcher engagement.
U21 is a global network of 25 top worldwide research intensive universities. Collectively, these universities enrol 1.3 million students and employ close to a quarter of million staff and faculty.
UCD has been an active U21 member since 2007. UCD President Professor Andrew J. Deeks is a member of the U21 Executive Committee.
Bairbre Redmond (pictured) is Professor of Higher Education at University College Dublin. She has been Dean of Undergraduate Studies and Deputy Registrar at UCD for the past eight years.
She is the first holder of the role of U21 Provost. Her appointment reflects her international academic reputation, particularly in the area of educational innovation.
During her tenure, Bairbre is keen to expand the work she has already begun in educational innovation, particularly in the articulation of wider U21 international standards and policies in areas such as student mobility and doctoral research.
“In this way, the U21 universities, which represent some of the most prestigious universities in the world, can set out well-researched, shared criteria and policies with the capacity to become important new international benchmarks in worldwide international higher education,” said Professor Redmond.
“UCD’s active and engaged membership of U21 continues to offer the university important links to new developments in international doctoral education and early-career research; exciting global opportunities for actual and virtual student mobility, as well as educational innovation.”
U21 aims to create truly international opportunities for students and staff on a scale that no individual university member would be able to achieve operating independently or through traditional bilateral alliances.
“Bairbre is well-known and well respected around the world, having been a leader in relation to learning and teaching developments within Universitas 21 and helping to establish joint online courses and develop standards of excellence which will be used around the globe to measure and celebrate high-quality teaching,” said Jane Usherwood, Secretary General, Universitas 21.
Bairbre has represented UCD on the U21 Senior Leaders’ Group for four years. She has also been Chair of the U21 Educational Innovation cluster since 2014. In this role, she has overseen the development of large shared online courses for students in U21 universities.
In the past year, she supported academics in the UCD Schools of Geography and Sociology and UCD Information Technology Services in designing a short online course in Planetary Urbanisation, which will go live to all U21 students in October 2016.
She has also overseen a major U21 project which has created shared U21 international criteria for judging teaching excellence in research intensive universities.
She will begin her tenure as Provost at U21 in October and will be seconded to this post by UCD.
By: Jamie Deasy, digital journalist, UCD University Relations
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