Linda studied Law in UCC and qualified as a Solicitor and Attorney-at-Law, practising law in New York and London with Debevoise & Plimpton. Since returning to Ireland, Linda has worked in Dublin in Law, Corporate Governance, Human Rights, Government, Education, Banking, Health and the Arts. In 2019, Linda graduated with an MEconSc in Public Policy (1st Class Hons.) awarded by IPA-UCD.

Elected to NUI Senate by Convocation for 25 years (2002-2027), Linda serves with a graduate’s perspective on a voluntary basis, including as inaugural Chair of Audit & Risk (2009-2022). Also elected to UCC’s Governing Body, Linda served as UCC’s Chair of Audit & Risk (2012-2015).

 

Manifesto

On foot of my five terms elected by Convocation to the NUI Senate, I am running for election as NUI Chancellor because I believe that a high-functioning third level education sector that is representative of Ireland today and responsive to today’s needs of students, graduates and academics is critical to Ireland’s future.

Serving the NUI community with a graduate’s perspective and on a voluntary basis, my varied professional and voluntary roles within and outside a university context put me in an ideal position to be an active contributor and independent voice. This included a range of important issues over the past 22 years, including serving on the Senate Sub-Committee established to oppose Government’s proposed dissolution of NUI in 2010, championing equality and diversity, promoting the Irish language, ensuring matriculation requirements are appropriate for today’s students, honouring Ireland’s artists and sportspeople. In addition, my work as Chair of the Audit & Risk Committees of NUI (13 years) and UCC (3 years) has brought about real and beneficial change.

I believe that my extensive experience facing the reality of working life as a graduate and professional woman in the private sector over the past four decades would serve the NUI Chancellorship well. I have shown initiative and tenacity in every role that I have undertaken, and I have a strong track record of persevering until improvements are delivered. For example, having campaigned for people with disabilities throughout my adult life, I was instrumental in getting Ireland’s first disability law on the statute books in 2005. Change does not happen on its own. If elected as NUI Chancellor, I will use this mandate and platform to make a difference in relation to issues such as funding, university governance, mass emigration of NUI graduates, precarity of employment for NUI graduates and academics, equality and diversity, housing and cost of living crises, paying the artist, ‘town & gown’ engagement with the community, climate change.

I hope that you can take the time to read more about me on www.lindaosheafarren.com, and about how you can vote. I was proposed for this role of NUI Chancellor by Professor Bryan McMahon from Kerry (former Professor of Law and Head of the Department of Law at UCC, retired High Court judge and past Chair of UCC’s Governing Body) and seconded by Tommy Francis from Donegal (former President of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland and past member of NUI Senate). As I am from Limerick and have been living in Dublin for more than 30 years, my campaign touches the four corners of Ireland.

In light of the significant changes in Irish society since the NUI was founded in 1908, I believe that it is time for an NUI Chancellor who embodies the greater diversity of today’s NUI community and represents a graduate’s perspective. Having been elected to the NUI Senate by Convocation for 25 years and following the five NUI Chancellors to date (Archbishop William J. Walsh (1908-1921); Éamon de Valera (1921-1975); Thomas Kenneth Whitaker (1976-1996); Garret FitzGerald (1997-2009); and Maurice Manning (2009-2024)), I respectfully ask you to entrust me with your vote for NUI Chancellor in ‘breaking the toughest glass ceiling of all - the male monopoly of leadership of Ireland’s academic institutions’ per Professor John A. Murphy (2014).

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