Professor Diana Rėklaitienė, Doctor of Social Sciences, has been re-elected as Rector of the Lithuanian University of Sport (LSU) for the next five-years. The LSU Council announced this decision after their meeting held on November 30th.
Prof. Rėklaitienė was elected for her first term in December 2018 by the decision of the LSU Council, becoming the first female Rector in the history of Lithuanian universities. A year before that, Prof. Rėklaitienė was appointed as a provisional Rector of the LSU.
“We are living in very uncertain times, when the only thing that remains certain is the constant change in the life of our society, so it’s very important to mobilise the community of our University to work together. We need to be able to adapt to global geopolitical, demographic and sustainability-related challenges, and this raises many challenges for the University in terms of work organisation, communication, training of students, improvement of quality in study programmes and research. These are the most important issues that we will focus on in the next five years as we implement the new LSU strategy,” said the LSU Rector.
Dian Rėklaitienė graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education (current LSU) in 1995 receiving Bachelor’s degree in physiotherapy and she earned Master’s degree in physiotherapy in 1997. In 2003, she defended her doctoral dissertation in social sciences (education) graduating from the joint doctoral programme of then Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education and Vilnius Pedagogical University.
Since 1997, she worked as an assistant and lecturer at the Lithuanian Academy of Physical Education. Since 2009, she worked as an associate professor at the Department of Adapted Physical Activity. From 2009 until 2011, she worked as the head of the Department of Recreation, Tourism and Sports Management, and since 2014, she has been the head of the Department of Coaching Science. In 2015, she was elected to become a member of the LSU Senate and in 2016, she became a member of the LSU Council. Since 2022, she is also a member of the National Health Council.
The LSU Rector is elected, appointed and dismissed by the University Council for a term of five years and for a maximum of two consecutive terms through a public competition.
“The election of the Rector for a second term is a natural recognition of the work she has already done and a mark of trust. With her energy, belief in the future of the University and ability to mobilise the team for joint actions, Diana Rėklaitienė is an outstanding leader of the LSU community, honourably representing the University in Lithuania and abroad,” said the Chairman of the LSU Council Ritoldas Narmontas.
Lithuanian Sports University is the only specialised university in the field of sport and health promotion in the Baltic States, combining the areas of sports coaching, physiotherapy, public health, physical education and sports management for nearly nine decades.
