Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal. Monday, June 12, 2023 - The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Open Campus is pleased to announce the appointment of Mrs Lesley Crane-Mitchell as Campus Public Orator for the Academic Years 2023-2026, with effect from August 1, 2023. Mrs Crane-Mitchell will succeed Dr Veronica Simon, who has been serving in this capacity since August 1, 2021, and whose service in this role will formally end on July 31, 2023.
Mrs Lesley Crane-Mitchell
Mrs Crane-Mitchell currently serves as Head of Site, Open Campus Saint Lucia, a position she has held since August 1, 2021, after serving in the role of Acting Head, from August 1, 2019 to July 31, 2021. She has led the Site through the difficult period of the COVID-19 Pandemic, maintaining its vibrancy through the provision of continuing and professional education programmes, public lectures, workshops/seminars, and significant registration in Senate-approved degree programmes.
Mrs Crane-Mitchell began her career with the Open Campus Saint Lucia in August 2010 as Outreach Officer and then Marketing and Outreach Officer from August 2011 – July 2019. During her years serving in this position, she made a significant impact on internal, local, and regional stakeholders, building and strengthening relationships, and raising awareness of The UWI Open Campus and its life-long learning mandate. Additionally, she served as Acting Marketing and Communications Manager for the Open Campus, from May 1 to December 31, 2018. During this period, she also served as a member of the Open Campus Leadership Team and accomplished several significant tasks, including the development of the June 2018 to March 2019 Open Campus/Strengthening Distance Education in the Caribbean (SDEC) Marketing and Communications Plan and had oversight of the SDEC funding budget of CAN $110,418.00 for marketing across the Open Campus Country Sites (OCCS), June to December 2018. She galvanized regional media houses into successfully playing the role of being key influencers for the Open Campus; coordinated and launched the 16th Biennial Inter-Campus Staff Games and developed the plan for The UWI's 70th Anniversary Finale.
For her service to the Open Campus, Mrs Crane-Mitchell received the Principal's Award for Excellence in Administration on October 21, 2015.
Mrs Crane-Mitchell is a proud alumna of The UWI. She holds the MA in Heritage Studies with distinction from the Mona Campus and the BA (Hons) in History and Law from the Cave Hill Campus. She has also completed professional development training in Project Management, Capacity Building and Quality Management Systems.
Her educational background in the Humanities, her writing skills and her ability to articulate well make her a suitable candidate to serve the Campus in this official capacity.
The Public Orator is an official position at The UWI. During public functions, the individual in this role speaks on behalf of the University. Each Campus has a Public Orator who prepares and delivers citations at functions such as graduations and awards ceremonies.
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal, Dr Francis O. Severin welcomes this prestigious appointment of Mrs Crane-Mitchell. He commented, “Mrs Crane-Mitchell has shown over the years, through her energy, organization, dedication, disposition, her sensibility of the Pan-Caribbean education project, and in this particular case, her excellent command of the English Language, in both its written and oral forms, that she is eminently qualified for this role, and we all expect her to flourish in it, and represent the Campus and the University well.” He also applauded and thanked Mrs Crane- Mitchell’s predecessor and his own successor in the role of Public Orator, Dr Veronica Simon, for her exquisite, meaningful, and authentically ‘human’ citations that she wrote while in the role. The Open Campus Executive Management Committee congratulates Mrs Crane-Mitchell on her appointment and wishes her success in this new role.
