New Executive Director for NZVCC

Media Release 14 September 2007

New Executive Director for NZVCC

The NZ Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, the representative body for the country’s eight universities, today announced the appointment of Penny Fenwick as its new Executive Director.

Ms Fenwick, who has 20 years’ management experience in the public and university sectors, will take over the NZVCC Executive Director role from the long-serving Mr Lindsay Taiaroa when he retires at the end of the year.

Announcing Ms Fenwick’s appointment, NZVCC chair Professor Roy Sharp said her work as Assistant Vice-Chancellor (Academic) at Victoria University of Wellington and service on the Committee on University Academic Programmes meant that she was ideally suited for the post.

She started her career as a sociology lecturer at the University of Canterbury and subsequently held management positions in the Department of Social Welfare, Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Ministry of Education and NZ Council for Educational Research.

After serving as Academic Registrar at Victoria for three years, she later took up the role as Assistant Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for academic matters and managed the establishment of the NZ School of Music, a joint venture with Massey University. The implementation of a strategic partnership between Victoria and the Wellington College of Education, now merged, was a further achievement.

Ms Fenwick holds a MA with first class honours in sociology from the University of Canterbury and has served on numerous professional, research, policy and international bodies. In recent years she has worked as an independent consultant in the tertiary education and public sectors with clients that included the Department of Labour, Foundation for Research, Science and Technology and the Wellington Institute of Technology.

ENDS

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