Last week she created history when she became the first woman to be appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana and while she feels sad that it took some 57 years for such an appointment to be made, Professor Paloma Mohamed-Martin says she must now honour the contributions and challenges of the many women who have served the university in acting positions but did not manage to shatter the glass ceiling.
There is no honeymoon period and the new Vice-Chancellor has to hit the ground running, but it is a race that may have been made easier by the fact that she has been heading the university’s Transitional Management Committee (TMC) for the past year.
The needs of Guyana’s leading tertiary institution are many and over the years there have been many tugs of war between the staff and administration. But high on the agenda of the new ‘woman in town’ is the bolstering of security, addressing salaries, completing critical infrastructure projects, refining the finance and human resources systems, and transforming student experiences and services.
