The Teaching and Learning Building is to be renamed the Monica Partridge Building following a University-wide vote.

As part of International Women’s Day celebrations we invited the University community to help decide the new name for the newest building on University Park based on a list of suggestions.

More than 2,500 votes were cast throughout March with the winner declared Monica Partridge in light of her role as the University’s first woman professor.

Meena Alexander and Helena Dowson – the two other names shortlisted for the vote- will have the Performing Arts Studio and the Lecture Theatre in the building bear their names respectively.

Professor Sarah Sharples, Pro-Vice-Chancellor Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and People, explained: “I’m delighted with the response to the voting and the renaming project. Our buildings may not be as important as the people and work that takes place inside but their names act as physical reminders of our university heritage. It makes me feel very proud to see these influential and pioneering women like Monica Partridge remembered in this way.”

Professor Partridge read French at University College, Nottingham, before becoming interested in Russia during World War II. She joined Nottingham University College’s Department of Slavonic Languages as a tutorial assistant in 1947 and became Chair and Head of Department in 1967. She established close links with universities in Slovenia and Croatia, paving the way for Nottingham students to study in Ljubljana and Zagreb.

She retired in 1980 and was made an Emeritus Professor of The University of Nottingham. In the same year her achievements were recognised internationally, with the Order of the Yugoslav Flag with a Gold Star for her promotion of Yugoslav studies in Britain.

Once the University returns to campus new signage and an opening ceremony will celebrate the Monica Partridge Building.

The building will also be home to the Trailblazing Women exhibition along with the portraits from the Press for Progress portrait exhibition launched at 2018 celebrations for International Women’s Day.