SUNDAY 8 APRIL, 2018 – UWI TODAY
5
CAMPUS NEWS
The UWI St. Augustine
hosted its 2018 Campus Council Meeting on March 20. Pro Vice-
Chancellor and Campus Principal Professor Brian Copeland presented highlights of the
2016-2017 Annual Report under the theme
Matta Season
which represents critical shifts
in focus as the Campus navigates a prolonged testing season.
He shared his vision for creating a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship as the
Campus responds to the changing mandate for education, declining economies and a need
for strategic but practical approaches to revitalizing the Caribbean.
“For developing nations to get ahead, efforts must go beyond education and training
to better equip citizens to use new technologies developed elsewhere. Our national
education systems must also seek to strengthen the culture of research that leads to export
entrepreneurship and innovation. By its very definition, innovation, through the “newness”
of what is produced, enhances competitiveness,” he wrote in the Report.
The Minister of Education, Anthony Garcia, attended the meeting and responded at
the press conference that followed. He committed our Government to supporting the work
of The UWI by making its contributions to the University in a timely manner.
“Our position has always been that cuts in education do not heal. We will give as much
as our resources will allow and will always be here to help sustain The University of the
West Indies. In the past ours has been one of the regional governments that has made its
contributions on time. We have faltered a bit over the last year or two but I want to give the
assurance to the University community that we have a commitment not only to support
the university but to ensure that our support is given on time,” he said.
Annual report highlights covered major advancements from each Faculty in offering
these practical solutions during the review period. They included:
• The introduction of summer internships with IBM, National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and Boeing in the USA for students of the
Faculty of
Engineering
.
• The
Faculty of Food and Agriculture’s
inaugural techAgri Expo which exposed over
8,000 people, including 2,500 school children to the innovative work of local and
regional ‘agripreneurs’.
• The offer of a new suite of income-generating services including translation services,
Conversational Language Learning and Teaching of English as a Foreign Language
by the
Faculty of Humanities and Education
.
• The
Faculty of Law’s
development of the International HumanRights Clinic supporting
the strengthening of Trinidad and Tobago’s capacity for elevating the standard and
execution of human rights protection.
• The activation of the
Faculty of Medical Sciences’
MOU with the Regional Health
Authorities (RHAs) enhancing the alignment between the Faculty’s output and needs
of the sector.
• A smart-grid cyber security training programme offered by the
Faculty of Science and
Technology
to managers and policy makers at the Trinidad and Tobago Electricity
Commission (T&TEC).
• The establishment of curriculum committees across the departments of the
Faculty
of Social Sciences
to ensure curriculum alignment with national needs.
In his final address as Chair of the St. Augustine Campus Council, Mr. Ewart Williams,
noted that the campus has managed the financially difficult times admirably, remaining
resilient and firmly committed to doing more with less.
“Universities worldwide are engine rooms for game changing technologies and
processes, and it is time that our University is seen as a key player in our national
diversification strategy. To advance this process, however, there is a critical need for more
research funding from Government as well as from the local private sector. I also support
the lament made by Principal Copeland in a recent Conference on Diversification, “that
the local private sector has not sufficiently taken advantage of the capabilities existing at
the University by supporting the relationship between research, product development and
entrepreneurship,” he wrote in the Report.
The Campus Council meets annually, largely to receive detailed reports on student
statistics, staff matters, strategic initiatives and curriculum updates from key officers and
committees.
(Terri-Ann Thompson)
The 2016-2017 report is available online as
/
MATTA SEASON
support fromGORTT
