Professor Odette Hutchinson

Overview

Professor Odette Hutchinson is the Pro Vice Chancellor for Academic Quality and Student Experience.

Odette joined Ulster University in August 2021 from Aston University where she was Reader in Legal Education and held a number of senior management positions including Interim Dean of Law; Director of International Programmes and Associate Dean Learning and Teaching

Odette played an instrumental role in developing and growing the Law School at Aston University and is a driving force for innovation and excellence in learning, teaching and assessment.

Learning and teaching

Odette is widely regarded as an expert on learning and teaching innovation and legal education. She has been instrumental in leading a range of transformation projects which have enhanced students’ learning experiences nationally and internationally.

Leadership

Odette has nearly twenty years of leadership experience in higher education and her previous roles include Chair of the Learning and Teaching Innovation Group at Birmingham City University Law School.

Odette has also worked as an educational consultant and visiting professor for the University of London and the Open University supporting these institutions to enhance their provision for distance learners. Odette is an experienced external examiner and assessor where she supports the sharing of learning and teaching innovation and best practice.

Awards

Odette has received numerous institutional and national awards in recognition of her own excellent practice and her ability to lead transformative change in higher education.

Most notably, she was awarded the Oxford University Press Law Teacher of the Year Award in 2013. She was also the first runner up for the Routledge Teaching Law with Technology Prize in 2013. In 2014, Odette was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in recognition of her outstanding commitment to learning and teaching excellence.

She was also awarded Most Inspirational Female Academic by Women in Business in 2017. While at Aston University, she was the recipient of several institutional excellence awards and a number of outstanding teaching awards nominated and voted for by student union members.

EDI

Odette has championed equality, diversity and inclusion in Higher Education for the last 19 years and she is the Chair of the EDI Committee here at Ulster University.

In addition to driving equality, diversity and inclusion forward within the institutions for which she has worked she has led sector change within the legal profession, as a member of the Social Mobility Committee for Birmingham Law Society and as a member of the Education and Training Committee at the General Bar Council.

In 2016, Odette was recognised for the positive impact of her practice nationally and internationally on equality, diversity and inclusion through the award of Principal Fellowship of the HEA.

Other membership

Odette is an executive member of the Association of Law Teachers a leading professional network for law teachers in the UK and internationally.

She is a co-lead for the Institutional Contacts Network with Advance HE, which supports UK institutions in developing their policy and practice in relation to the National Teaching Fellowship and Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence schemes.

Odette is also a member of the Peer Review College for the leading international Legal Education Journal, The Law Teacher.