Professor Larra Anderson

Biography

Larra Anderson is the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) and Professor at East-15 Acting School. Working closely with the previous office-holder, Larra joined Essex in a designate role in Nov 2023 and took over leadership for education and student experience in August 2024. Previously, Larra was the Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic and Professor of Screen Education at Norwich University of the Arts, where she set the direction and oversaw all of the academic activity of the institution. This included leadership and management of over 200 staff engaged in teaching, learning, employability, research, knowledge exchange, technical instruction, academic support, library, archives and the East Gallery. She oversaw all technical facilities and capital expenditure, including having developed a successful £1.6M bid for funding from the Office for Students (OfS) for construction of a Virtual Desktop, Creative Technology Lab and a Virtual Production Studio, and overseeing the delivery of a £780K World Class Lab in Immersive Screen Technologies for the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). She led her team in the highly successful university submission to both the REF 2022 and KEF Concordat and led on the construction of the TEF 2023 submission which ended with a ranking for the University of Triple Gold. During her tenure the university rose 30 points (the most of any institution) to the top two Creative Arts University in the Complete University Guide 2023 and 24 (only 2nd to University of the Arts London), as well as in StudentCrowd 2023 (the only UK league table based entirely on student reviews). Prior to her appointment at Norwich, Larra was the Dean of Screen at University of the Arts London’s London College of Communication, where she established and built the Screen School for the University. Starting from a handful of seed courses, Larra led the development and expansion of the school, ending up with a portfolio of 25 courses in the Creative Industries. She also led and developed UAL’s entry into music through courses in music production. Over three years she saw the School’s NSS ‘overall satisfaction’ scores rise 21 points, ‘teaching on my course’ by 10 points, and ‘assessment and feedback‘ by 16 points. Retension also raised to 86%, attainment stabilised at 76% of students earning ‘good degrees’ and decreased the BAME awarding gap by 7%. Over four years she increased the Screen School’s direct income from research and KE grants from £150K to over £1M – as PI or Co-I on over 50% of this income, including grants from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (£1.4M) and the Office for Students (OfS) (£160K). Her research project ‘The Games Fusion Project’ won the award for Best Educational Initiative and Talent Development at The Independent Games Association (TIGA) Games Industry Awards in 2019. Larra also chaired the LCC KE Committee and led the construction of the new College KE Strategy. As Chair of the Deans at UAL, Larra worked directly with Vice-Chancellor on the redesign of the cross-university role of the deans, and led the Deans Group during the transition to online teaching at the beginning of the pandemic. Before joining UAL, Larra was the Director of the Northern Film School where she doubled student numbers and during her tenure oversaw the NSS overall student satisfaction score rising by 59 points to 93% in four years. She also led the school to become listed as one of the ‘top five schools to watch’ in the annual film school review by the Hollywood Reporter and under her course leadership MA student films were shortlisted for and a student won the film school’s first Oscar. She oversaw the Northern Film School entering the REF (2014) for the first time with her own work on the film ‘Hit So Hard’ being internally ranked at 4*. This led to her receiving an internal grant for £39K from Leeds Beckett to produce the feature film ‘Mansfield 66/67’ which went on to screen at festivals and in cinemas worldwide, resulting in another 4* output. Larra is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, a Senior Fellow of AdvanceHE and was awarded membership of the European Film Academy for her contribution to filmmaking. Her research and industry work spans screen and performance and includes film, television and theatre, in which she has worked professionally as a producer and director, as well as working as a screenwriter and cinematographer. Her work has predominantly centred around issues of feminism, sexuality, and queer culture and has appeared in festivals worldwide including Sundance, SXSW, Berlin and Venice. She is open to further PhD supervision and has overseen practice-based PhD’s in both film and performance.

Qualifications

• BA - The Great Books Program St. Johns College, (1988)

• MFA Film Production University of Southern California, (1997)

Appointments

University of Essex

• Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) and Professor of Screen, East-15 Acting School, University of Essex (1/11/2023 - present)

Other academic

• Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic and Professor of Screen Education, Norwich University of the Arts (1/12/2020 - 13/10/2023)

• Dean of Screen, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (3/10/2016 - 1/12/2020)

• Director of the Northern Film School and Principal Lecturer, Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University (1/8/2012 - 30/9/2016)

• Course Leader - MA Filmmaking, Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University (1/3/2010 - 1/9/2014)

• Senior Lecturer - Film and Moving Image Production, Northern Film School, Leeds Beckett University (8/9/2008 - 1/8/2012)