UWI/Guardian Life 'Premium' Open Lecture 2003

Feature Speaker: Prof. K. Patricia Cross

Topic: Learning is About Making Connections

K. Patricia Cross is Professor of Higher Education, Emerita at the University of California at Berkeley. Prof. Cross has had a distinguished career as a university administrator (Assistant Dean of Women, University of Illinois and Dean of Students at Cornell University), researcher (Distinguished Research Scientist at Educational Testing Service and Research Educator at The Center for Research and Development in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley), and teacher (Professor and Chair of the Department of Administration, Planning, and Social Policy at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Professor of Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley).

The author of ten books and more than 200 articles and chapters, Prof. Cross has been recognized for her scholarship by election to the National Academy of Education, receipt of the E.F. Lindquist Award from the American Educational Research Association, the Sidney Suslow Award from the Association for Institutional Research, and the Howard Bowen Distinguished Career Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

She was voted one of the "44 most influential leaders" in higher education in a Change Magazine poll in 1975, and when the poll was repeated in 1998, she was again selected as a national leader. Elected Chair of the Board of the American Association of Higher Education twice (1975 and 1989), she has received many awards for her leadership in education, among them the Leadership award from the American Association of Community and Junior colleges, the Outstanding Service Award from the Coalition of Adult Education Organizations, the award for outstanding contributions to the improvement of instruction from the National Council of Instructional Administrators, and the 2000 Leadership award from the Association for Continuing Higher Education. She has been awarded 15 honorary degrees and is listed in Who's Who in America.

She is currently a Trustee of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Berkeley Public Library, a member of the Board of Directors of Elderhostel, the National Selection Committee for the Hesburgh Award, Visiting Committee for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Senior Fellow at the League for Innovation in the Community College.

She has lectured on American higher education widely in the United States and abroad in England, France, Denmark, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Holland. Her interests are primarily in changing college student populations, adult learning, and the improvement of teaching and learning in higher education.

Prof. Cross received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Illinois State University and Master's and Ph.D. degrees in social psychology from the University of Illinois.

Friday 5th December