AN AMERICAN professor has traded the foothills of the Rocky Mountains for the banks of the River Wye and joined Hereford’s new university.

Sarah Hitt, originally from Lincoln, Nebraska, says she’s thrilled to be part of the formation of a brand new academic institution.

As of June 2019, the former academic at the Colorado School of Mines, Denver, is now full professor of engineering education at New Model in Technology and Engineering.

She says it was only by chance that she became aware of the the new university.

Sarah read an article on NMiTE while visiting a friend in Hereford last year.

She emailed the university and asked if there would be any openings to keep her CV on file. Several months later she was offered a job after an interview process.

“I opened the Hereford Times and there was an article about the university,” she said.

“I thought, how very strange that someone is building a university based on the very same values of what I was doing.”

When asked why she wanted to trade her great career in the United States for the opening in Hereford she said it was too good an opportunity to miss.

“This is an incredible opportunity to actually build a new university, almost no one ever gets the chance to do that.”

She said she became an Anglophile because of her interest in English and literary studies.

“When I was a little girl I thought it would be really cool to live somewhere else, particularly England.”

Sarah grew up watching episodes of British TV series such as EastEnders, which was broadcast across the pond on Public Broadcasting Service.

She says her move to Hereford has been a really refreshing change and doesn’t miss her half-hour commute in Colorado.

“I really love not having a car,” she said.

“My 10-minute walk to work is right in front of Hereford Cathedral and past some really lovely spaces.

“It’s a lifestyle improvement, but I do miss tacos and tequila though; there’s not a lot of that around here!”

She said Herefordshire reminds her in many ways of her home state of Nebraska.

“It’s all farms and quite rural but with small very tight-knit communities,” she said.

“Outsiders tend to think of it as an isolated place out of the way but there is really a lot going on there.”