Shearer West | |
---|---|
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds | |
Assumed office November 2024 | |
Preceded by | Hai-Sui Yu (acting) |
Personal details | |
Alma mater | University of St Andrews College of William and Mary |
Academic background | |
Thesis | The theatrical portrait in eighteenth century London (1986) |
Shearer Carroll West CBE is a British-American art-historian and university administrator serving as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds since 2024. She was the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham from 2017 to 2024.
West was raised in a small town in southwest Virginia. [1] Her father worked as a factory floor supervisor,and her mother was a high school teacher. West was the first in her family to attend university. [1] West holds an B.A. in art history and English from the College of William &Mary,in Virginia,and a Ph.D. (1986) in art history,specializing in European art and visual culture from the University of St Andrews. [2] [1] Her dissertation supervisors were Martin Kemp and Robin Spencer.
West began her career in academic publishing,working as an editor for the Grove Dictionary of Art . She then transitioned to her first academic appointment at the University of Leicester,where she began to focus her research on portraiture and visual culture within European contexts. Her early scholarly contributions laid the foundation for her ongoing research interests in the relationship between art and social identity. [1]
In 1996,West moved to the University of Birmingham to serve as Head of the Department of History of Art. [3] [4] [5] During this period,she conducted research that would eventually be published in works such as Fin de Siècle:Art and Society in an Age of Uncertainty,a book that examined the cultural anxieties and artistic innovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. [1] This work,along with her other publications,explored themes of societal change and the role of the visual arts in shaping cultural narratives. [1] In 2000,West’s academic contributions were recognized with a personal chair at Birmingham,elevating her to the rank of full professor. Subsequently,she expanded her responsibilities to include Head of the School of Historical Studies and,briefly,Acting Head of the College of Arts and Law. [1]
In 2008,West was appointed Director of Research at the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC),where she chaired the Research Directors Group for Research Councils UK. [1] In this capacity,she directed efforts to foster interdisciplinary and collaborative research within the arts and humanities. Her role at AHRC marked a shift in her career toward research management and policy development,although she continued her own scholarship in art history,focusing on themes such as German art and cultural identity. Her book The Visual Arts in Germany 1897-1940:Utopia and Despair was published during this time,analyzing how visual arts in Germany reflected the sociopolitical climate leading up to World War II. [1]
In 2011,West joined the University of Oxford as Head of the Humanities Division. [4] Here,she oversaw initiatives such as the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH),an interdisciplinary platform for collaborative research,and the Ertegun Graduate Scholarship Programme in the Humanities,which provided support for humanities graduate students. During her tenure,she researched portraiture,which culminated in the publication of Portraiture,an examination of the history and cultural significance of portraiture as a genre. [1]
In 2015,West transitioned to the University of Sheffield,where she served as Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor. [3] In this role,she managed academic strategy and oversaw the university’s research and educational missions. Her leadership at Sheffield involved significant responsibilities in institutional governance,but she continued to support humanities research through her advisory roles and contributions to scholarly evaluations. [4] [1]
On October 2,2017,West was appointed Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Nottingham,becoming the seventh individual to hold this position. Shortly after assuming office,she published a new University Strategy in December 2019,which emphasized the university’s priorities for research excellence,education,and community outreach. In this role,she represents the institution on the Universities UK Board. [1] West was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to education.[ citation needed ]
In November 2024,West will assume the position of Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leeds,succeeding Simone Buitendijk and acting Vice-Chancellor Hai-Sui Yu. [6] [7]
The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine and was renamed Yorkshire College. It became part of the federal Victoria University in 1887, joining Owens College and University College Liverpool. In 1904, a royal charter was granted to the University of Leeds by King Edward VII.
Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. The university is based on two sites; the City Campus is located in the city centre near Sheffield railway station, while the Collegiate Crescent Campus is about two miles away in the Broomhall Estate off Ecclesall Road in south-west Sheffield. A third campus at Brent Cross Town in the London Borough of Barnet is expected to open for the 2025–26 academic year.
Frederick Sydney Dainton, Baron Dainton, Kt, FRS, FRSE was a British academic chemist and university administrator.
Sir Alan Geoffrey Wilson is a British mathematician and social scientist, former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds and a professor at University College London.
A provost is a senior academic administrator. At many institutions of higher education, the provost is the chief academic officer, a role that may be combined with being deputy to the chief executive officer. They may also be the chief executive officer of a university, of a branch campus of a university, or of a college within a university.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), formerly Arts and Humanities Research Board (AHRB), is a British research council, established in 1998, supporting research and postgraduate study in the arts and humanities.
Dame Lillian Margery Penson, DBE was a professor of modern history at the University of London, and the first woman to serve as vice-chancellor of the university.
Professor Pamela Gillies is a Scottish academic and educator who served as Principal and Vice-Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University from March 2006 until January 2023.
Professor Dame Janet Patricia Beer, is a British academic who served as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Liverpool from February 2015 until December 2022. She took over from Howard Newby, having previously been Vice-Chancellor at Oxford Brookes University and Pro-Vice Chancellor Academic and Dean of Humanities, Law and Social Sciences at Manchester Metropolitan University.
The University of Nottingham is a public research university in Nottingham, England. It was founded as University College Nottingham in 1881, and was granted a royal charter in 1948.
Rebecca Fortnum is a British artist, writer, and academic.
Evelyn Kathleen Welch is an American scholar of the Renaissance and Early Modern Period, and Vice Chancellor of the University of Bristol. Prior to her role as Vice Chancellor, Evelyn was the professor of Renaissance Studies, Provost, and Senior Vice President at King's College London. She served as the Interim President and Principal of King's College London from February to June 2021.
Alison Donnell is an academic, originally from the United Kingdom. She is Professor of Modern Literatures and Head of the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia. She was previously Head of School of Literature and Languages at the University of Reading, where she also founded the research theme "Minority Identities: Rights and Representations". Her primary research field is anglophone postcolonial literature, and she has been published widely on Caribbean and Black British literature. Much of her academic work also focuses questions relating to gender and sexual identities and the intersections between feminism and postcolonialism.
Geoffrey Joel Crossick FRHistS is a British academic who is Professor of Humanities at the School of Advanced Study, a postgraduate school of the University of London. He was Vice-Chancellor of London University from 2010 to 2012.
Svenja Adolphs is a British linguist whose research involves analysis of corpus data including sources of multimodal material such as the Nottingham Multimodal Corpus (NMMC) to examine communication in new forms of digital records. Using visual mark-up systems, her work allows a better understanding of the nature of natural language use. She is a co-founder of the Health Language Research Group at the University of Nottingham, bringing together academics and clinicians to advance the work of applied linguistics in health care settings.
Christina Riggs is a British-American historian, academic, and former museum curator. She specializes in the history of archaeology, history of photography, and ancient Egyptian art, and her recent work has concentrated on the history, politics, and contemporary legacy of the 1922 discovery of Tutankahmun's tomb. Since 2019, she has been Professor of the History of Visual Culture at Durham University. She is also a former Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. The author of several academic books, Riggs also writes on ancient Egyptian themes for a wider audience. Her most recent books include Ancient Egyptian Magic: A Hands-On Guide and Treasured: How Tutankhamun Shaped a Century.
Judith Tucker was a British artist and academic. She completed a BA in Fine Arts at the Ruskin School of Art, St Anne's College, Oxford, (1978–81) an MA in Fine Arts (1997–98) and a PhD in Fine Arts at the University of Leeds (1999–2002). Tucker is co-convenor of LAND2, a research network of artists associated with higher education who are concerned with radical approaches to landscape with a particular focus on memory, place and identity. She exhibits regularly in the UK and Europe. Between 2003 and 2006, Tucker was an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Fellow in the Creative and Performing Arts.
Andrew Stuart Thompson is a British historian and academic. He specialises in modern British history, Imperialism, and the British Empire. Since September 2019, he has been Professor of Global Imperial History at the University of Oxford and a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. Thompson co-chairs the Global and Imperial History Centre. He previously taught at the University of Leeds and the University of Exeter. He was Executive Chair of the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) from 2018 to 2020, having previously been its chief executive on a part-time basis.
April Mary Scott McMahon is a British academic administrator and linguist, who is Vice President for Teaching, Learning and Students at the University of Manchester.
Harriet Hawkins is a British cultural geographer. She is Professor of Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she is the founder and Co-Director of the Centre for Geo-Humanities, and the Director of the Technē AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. As part of Research Excellence Framework 2021, she is a member of the Geography and Environmental Studies expert sub-panel. In 2016, she was winner of a Philip Leverhulme Prize and the Royal Geographical Society Gill Memorial Award. In 2019, she was awarded a five-year European Research Council grant, as part of the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. She was previously the Chair of the Royal Geographical Society Social and Cultural Geography Research Group.