SUNDAY 3RD JULY, 2016 – UWI TODAY
11
EXIT INTERVIEW – PROFESSOR CLEMENT SANKAT
“So both in the graduates we produced, our research,
whether it is work we did in the diversification of the
sugarcane industry, like the sugarcane bagasse for animal
feeds; mechanical equipment for nutmegs; nutmeg
processing in Grenada; the drying of fruits and herbs and
spices for the Eastern Caribbean islands; mechanization in
agriculture; storage of the breadfruit, pommerac, you name
them, shadon beni, these things have brought me immense
pleasure, because I was always curious. I always wanted to
solve problems. I’ve always been very focused on problem-
solving and creativity as a researcher, as an engineer, creating
a better world around us. These things have brought me a
lot of pleasure.”
He refers to a University-wide report he did on graduate
education at The UWI. “That report I think stands out. I
have always felt the university should be a standout in terms
of graduate training and research. I am leaving this Campus
very proud of our graduate students. One in every three
students at St. Augustine is a graduate student. We have
the biggest graduate student numbers across the whole
university. I leave the university with St. Augustine being
the biggest Campus in the university system.”
Relevance, Responsiveness, Reach, Regionality and
Research.These were the watchwords that guided his tenure,
he said, as he reached into a dossier on the table to extract
a Powerpoint presentation from when he first became
Principal. He talks about reaching out, like to Tobago, like
to San Fernandowhere a satellite campus, the SouthCampus
at Penal-Debe, has been under construction for a few years.
“In an environment where the Campus was pressed
for space we didn’t want to touch our green spaces. The
space at St. Augustine was already overloaded. Setting up
another space was important, as was trying to acquire new
spaces on the outskirts of our campus right here. We’ve
been doing that too. We’ve been buying up lands on the
eastern side and putting up buildings. That is where our
new Teaching and Learning Centre is; it’s on a new space
that the Campus bought. Trinity House, the Film Building,
the Library Building, all these are buildings on new lands
purchased, because we didn’t want to overcrowd this lovely
St. Augustine Campus and its ancestral greenery from the
Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture. I wouldn’t do it
and I hope those coming after me do not do it also, because
I would be the first to protest,” he said.
He is particularly proud of the acquisition of the lands
at Orange Grove which is the site of the plannedAgricultural
Innovation Park. “Remember Orange Grove was land in
exchange for the Mt Hope Campus that was promised by
former Prime Minister Dr. Eric Williams, but was never
achieved.This principal worked steadily to achieve this with
the support of the Government of Trinidad and Tobago and
that has been one of my significant contributions.”
He is also proud of the 150 acres of land at the South
Campus and its “physical structure of 11 buildings,
including residences, sporting facilities, a state of the art
cricket ground, football field, pavilion, swimming pool, and
student facilities that would be the envy of the students at St.
Augustine or any Campus around the world. Rolling, green
landscape with 10 acres of citrus already planted!”
I ask him if physical expansion would summarize his
legacy. He says it is a part of what was a bigger vision. “The
campus I inherited was a growing environment. We had to
create new spaces.”
He talks about Faculties created – Law, Science and
Technology, and Food and Agriculture – and he says the
latter is also one of his legacies. “I worked withmy colleagues
to recreate this thing because there was a crying out from
our stakeholders to bring back agriculture to the top of the
university’s agenda and there is good reason for it, we are
importing $4 billion in food, and the university came out
of a legacy in agriculture. That is why Orange Grove, our
East Campus with the Agricultural Innovation Park is now
going to be the centerpiece of what is going to happen in
agriculture on this Campus.”
The Faculty of Law came about by the University taking
that decision because the demand was overwhelming, he
said.
“When I came in as Principal more than 1,500 students
were applying to do Law, they would have had to do their
first year in Trinidad and the next two years at Cave Hill.
You know how many were getting places? Fifty. And that
was repeated in Jamaica. So it was not like the University
wanted to destroy the Faculty at Cave Hill. The University
wanted to be responsive and to reach out. And of course,
the South Campus came at the same time as the expansion
of Law and therefore it found a natural home in there, just
half an hour from St. Augustine,” he said.
“So yes, I won’t want my legacy to be seen as something
just physical or expansionary, it was an expanded vision
that included the growth of student enrolment, ensuring
quality with institutional and programme accreditation at
the centre. When I became Principal, students were sitting
on the floors and corridors of this Campus. And the new
facilities have removed all of that. There was a crying out
for more space. Today we have some of the best teaching
spaces in any part of our University at the Teaching and
Learning Complex, the Faculty Development Centre on St.
John’s Road, and many more.”
He is happy about the residences that were built for
medical students at San Fernando General Hospital andMt
Hope and he regrets that one, possibly the most pressing,
has not yet been started at Port of Spain, though he says the
plans are already there.
He lists some of the buildings that were completed
under his watch, and some he initiated. The Film Building
on Carmody Street, he says, was one of his promises.
“The Department of Creative and Festival Arts has
publicly complained about space. The first building built
under my tenure, you wouldn’t believe, was for the DCFA
in Gordon Street. And as I leave, we are putting up a $25
million building for the DCFA that is rising in the air
with the support of Republic Bank. This is also
one of the achievements under my leadership,
forging multi-million dollar partnerships
with the private sector and also building
strong international partnerships, for
example with China, India, Korea, Mexico,
Cuba, Brazil, etc. ”
He gets up to show drawings of the
projected design of the northern entrance
of the campus where Republic Bank is
being built. It will transform the look and
feel of our Northern Entrance, he says.
He says he has wanted to build a
“world-class university” and I ask whether
he thinks he has left behind a world class
university and what would be those world
class characteristics.
We are on that path, he says, offering a
“quick checklist” taken from a 2013 lecture at
UWI delivered by a global tertiary education
expert, Dr Jamil Salmi.
The first thing would be attracting the best
talent. “Now my score would be St. Augustine
continues to attract the best. You just have to see the
quality of students we accept from our secondary
schools –many very good. Other leading universities
in the world would be pleased to have them. We
continue to attract excellent West Indians and others to the
academy as lecturers. We could do better if we had the ability
to compensate better, but the environment also in Trinidad
and Tobago has sometimes defeated us because good people
have been turned off because of the crime.”
The second aspect would be securing great resources,
essentially money.
“In many ways in the last several years we’ve done very
well. The regional governments have supported us and
particularly the Government of Trinidad and Tobago. The
advent of GATE has brought immense benefits for students
and their participation in university education, but I leave
at not such a good time because we are now engulfed in the
downturn in Trinidad and Tobago’s gas and oil economy
and so the Campus will be challenged in the next couple
of years for resources. We are aware of this. And we are
developing strategies to deal with this downturn, but if we do
the necessary restructuring and implement with resolve, we
can emerge in the next few years a much stronger Campus
and University.”
The third item on his checklist is “very good”
governance.
“The UWI has a very unique governance structure
because of the regionality – 17 governments – a structure
that is sometimes seen as excessively bureaucratic and
difficult, but let me say that we do have a governance
structure that works and ensures accountability at every
level.”
He says that while the UWI gets “great marks fromme
in terms of governance, I still think we have a way to go to
becoming a world class university.”
But for him, it is time for a
different way of life, one where
he spends time with his family
and tries to catch up on lost
moments. “I’m looking
forward to experiencing
what it means to not be
on a treadmill every day
of the year, he says, but at
the same time, “I’m
not ready to be
hammock-
ized.”
