Ms. Frances O'Connell
Vice President Student Education and Experience, Technological University of the Shannon
Frances is part of the executive management team of the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS). Her senior management experience in both Athlone Institute of Technology and Limerick Institute of Technology, that merged to form TUS, is informing her work as the inaugural Vice President for Student Education and Experience in TUS since its designation as a Technological University in October 2021.
Her remit includes the management of teaching and learning practices; student affairs & services; library services; student transition, progression, and success initiatives; and, student societies, all of which contribute to the student experience. It is a very busy brief that has entailed the development of new strategies, policies and practices to assure the efficiency and effectiveness of these provisions across the seven campuses of TUS.
Frances has held several senior management positions in a range of sectors which have honed her significant organisational, management, and leadership skills over the five decades of her career to date. She has successfully led large scale teams working on complex transformational projects, both in Ireland and internationally, in the full range of sectors including the civil service, the public service, the private sector, and as a senior management consultant. Such projects have included institutional and structural reforms, mergers, large scale IT system design and implementations, business process re-engineering projects, and the development and implementation of public policy. She has designed many academic and professionally accredited programmes from Level 6 to Level 9 as an academic and has lectured over many years in a wide range of disciplines reflecting her own academic, experiential and professional expertise and knowledge.
Frances has been part of a wide range of strategic sectoral initiatives and projects, serving on a range of steering committees, bodies, and boards that are bringing positive change to the higher education sector in Ireland.
She is a first-class honours graduate of DIT (now TUD) and Michael Smurfit Business School and is currently completing a PhD in Lancaster University.