Mary Lou spent almost all her entire professional career in international education, with the past 15 years focused on Africa. She lived in Madagascar for six years before she took her position as the Dean of African Studies for SIT Study Abroad. Experiences in working with a global network of knowledge producers and directing collaborative projects engaging students from many different countries gave her conviction that OCW is a movement which is truly a global endeavor, with the ability to cross cultures and national boundaries to reach people in different situations and locations.

She sees OCWC as the facilitator of the global OCW community. The OCWC needs to nurture and grow the membership to increase the impact of the movement and the realization of its vision. This will require excellence in member services, communications, outreach, and technical support to allow members to create sustainable OCW projects that meet their own goals. As ED, Mary Lou’s main task would be to execute the Consortium’s Strategic Plan that was adopted by the Board of Directors at the Annual Meeting in April. This includes identifying and implementing strategies, keeping one eye on the horizon and one on the immediate future.

Mary Lou’s official first day was yesterday, but she had been communicating closely with Terri and Steve in the past couple weeks which let her have a fully-charged and exciting first day. She had a meeting with JISC to talk about the OER and OCW movements in the UK, and she worked on editing the business plan for the coming year. She looks forward to working closely with all the contributors of the Consortium to make this compelling and ground-breaking work gain long-term sustainability and impact. And I am sure that I speak for all of us at the Consortium when I say that we are delighted to have such talent and expertise with us. Again, welcome, Mary Lou!