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Professor Ian Fribbance becomes a Principal Fellow

Prof Ian Fribbance

Professor Ian Fribbance, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), has been awarded the status of Principal Fellow by Advance HE (formerly the HE Academy). Ian is also a National Teaching Fellow.  

Ian’s latest award recognises his extensive cross-institutional contribution to teaching and learning at the OU, including initiatives such as the use of Facebook and other social media to build academic communities for our online students, and his innovative development of live online conferencing, which later morphed into Student Hub Live.

Ian also sponsored the work to develop the previous ‘Student Experience’ workstream looking at the holistic way the University could interact with students in the future, and the ‘More Students Qualifying’ project which set in motion the work to establish the current student success priorities. 

The award also recognised Ian’s extensive work over many years to develop financial literacy starting with the You and Your Money module, which has been taught to over 25,000 students since 2006, and set in train much more successful work by the University to develop the nation’s financial capability. 

​Also Ian’s highly successful tenure as Executive Dean of FASS over the last four years, which has helped drive an almost 50% growth in new student numbers in the Faculty since 2017. There are over 122,000 Fellows in the UK and internationally, of whom just over 1,000 have attained Principal Fellow status.

Ian said: ‘I am delighted to have received this recognition from Advance HE. It is a great reflection on some of these important initiatives to harness technology to enhance our students’ learning and wider experiences, and I am particularly pleased that the work to develop financial capability teaching has also received such appreciation.”

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