(Georgetown/Guyana/June 11/2020) The University of Guyana Council salutes the historic appoint- ment of Professor Paloma Mohamed–Martin .A.A. as the University of Guyana’s first female Vice-Chancellor in its 57th year of existence since its establishment in 1963.

In June 2019, acting in accordance with the legal provisions of the University Act and Statutes, and specifically, bearing in mind the authority of the Council in Section 11(1) of the University of Guyana Act Cap 39:02 to appoint the Vice-Chancellor, the Council initiated a comprehensive Search Process to fill the vacancy which arose by the demitting of Office of the 10th Vice-Chancellor on June 14, 2019.

The vacancy, which was advertised for 2 months locally, regionally, and internationally received a to- tal of 46 applicants by the closing date of January 31, 2020. Thereafter, the Search Committee established by the Council proceeded to review all applications and presented a short list of the five (5) top candidates. These 5 candidates were subjected to a robust due diligence exercise from which 4 candidates emerged successful. Thereafter, they were subjected to evaluation via a series of structured engagements with the University Coun- cil, the Search Committee, Academic Board, and the General Public through a Public Lecture. This lasted for a period of 3 weeks. Due to the coronavirus conditions all engagements were conducted virtually and as- sessed by a wide cross section of stakeholder groups within the University as well as a core of external evalua- tors.

On June 5, 2020 the University Council, at a Special Session received a recommendation from the Search Committee that presented a list of the top three (3) candidates which considered the tabulated scores from the evaluators at all the engagements. In this regard, Professor Mohamed-Martin .A.A. had emerged from the tabulation with the highest scores, and in considering this fact and other variables, as outlined in the public advertisement, the Council agreed to the appointment of Professor Mohamed as the 11th Vice Chancel- lor of the University.

The Council acknowledges that as the first female Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Pro- fessor Mohamed-Martin is assuming this high office against a solid background of impressive results, inter alia, at the University of Guyana. Having returned to Guyana in 2007 she played a key and instrumental role in the resuscitation of the Centre for Communication Studies, becoming its Director and subsequently serving the University with distinction as Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Philanthropy, Alumni and Civic Engagement (PACE) and Chair of the Transitional Management Committee (TMC) for al- most one year in the absence of a substantial Vice-Chancellor. Her solid academic and scholastic achieve- ments are well known and published in the community of academia and she has been awarded several of Guy- ana’s and the Caribbean’s highest honors for her work.

The Council congratulates and wishes her a successful tenure of office as she assumes this important Office as the first female Vice-Chancellor of our national University and looks forward to her continued self- less dedication to duty.

Public Relations Division
For the University Council
June 11, 2020