Former UNESCO Higher Education Chief Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic Joins Academic Partnerships as Senior Advisor

DALLAS, Feb. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Academic Partnerships (AP), one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States, today announced that Ms. Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic will join the company as a senior advisor.  Former Chief of the Higher Education Section of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science, and Culture (UNESCO), Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic is an international leader in education reform, innovation, quality assurance, and accreditation who brings more than 20 years of higher education experience to Academic Partnerships.

"I have long been an active participant in the growth of international higher education," said Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic.  "In collaboration with Academic Partnerships, I have the opportunity to work with innovative universities that are seeking to make higher education more accessible to students around the world."

"We are excited to welcome someone with Stamenka's extensive knowledge and experience in the higher education space to our team," said Randy Best, founder and chairman of Academic Partnerships. "Stamenka's higher education background in numerous countries brings a broad perspective to Academic Partnerships as we work to serve universities on a global basis."

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic's first senior role in higher education was as Secretary-General of the Association of Universities in Yugoslavia.  In the early 1990s, she joined UNESCO's European Centre for Higher Education in Bucharest with the goal of enhancing the quality of higher education throughout a more integrated Europe.  Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic was quickly promoted to lead the unit managing higher education at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.  Her major achievements include developing the 2005 UNESCO-OECD Guidelines for Quality Provision in Cross-Border Higher Education; launching the Global Forum on International Quality Assurance, Accreditation, and the Recognition of Qualifications; and implementing the UNESCO-World Bank partnership for capacity-building in quality assurance for developing countries.

Inspired by her work with innovative providers in a world with huge unmet demand for higher education, Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic collaborated on the A Tectonic Shift in Higher Education paper with education pioneer and Academic Partnerships Senior Advisor Sir John Daniel and Asha Kanwar.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic was voted International Higher Education Professional of the Year 2009 by her peers in the International Community of Higher Education.  That same year, as UNESCO's Executive Secretary, she was centrally involved in the organization of the 2009 World Conference on Higher Education.  The conference was attended by more than 2,000 ministers, officials, and institutions from countries all over the world.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic continues to be a consultant to UNESCO on issues related to the Recognition of Degrees and Qualifications in Higher Education.  In the past year, she was a Senior Consultant to the Commonwealth of Learning in a project that resulted in the 2012 UNESCO Paris Declaration on Open Educational Resources adopted by acclamation.  She is the Education Master with the DeTao Masters Academy in China and was recently named Senior Consultant to the U.S. Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) for the creation of its International quality group.

Ms. Uvalic-Trumbic studied at the Universities of Belgrade and the Sorbonne.

Academic Partnerships has a successful track record of helping universities expand access and scale the delivery of their high quality online degree programs.  AP has assisted more than 750 professors convert more than 1,500 traditional courses into an electronic delivery format and recruited thousands of students into online degree programs for its U.S. and international partners.  

About Academic Partnerships 
Academic Partnerships (AP) helps universities convert their traditional degree programs into an online format, recruits qualified students and supports enrolled students through graduation.  Serving more than 40 public institutions, AP is one of the largest representatives of public universities' online learning in the United States.  The company was founded by social entrepreneur Randy Best, an 18-year veteran of developing innovative learning solutions to improve education.  AP is guided by the principle that the opportunities presented through distance learning make higher education more accessible and achievable for students in the U.S. and globally.  For more information, please visit www.academicpartnerships.com.

Contact:

Jaquelyn M. Scharnick
Academic Partnerships
+1.214.438.4144   
[email protected]

SOURCE Academic Partnerships