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May 2009
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EDITORIAL Those of us who are old enough will recall that the Games first started as the Inter Campus Games in 1968 and were annual events, but within ten years they were restructured and reconfigured as biennial Games. With sport now recognised as a substantial area of human development, and with sport industries being among those that flourished in recent times, it is much easier to make the case for investment in sport in the Caribbean. As a University, we believe that by providing the world class sporting facilities and sport-related academic programmes that we are doing on our various Campuses, we are giving students and staff also, new opportunities to engage in recreational sports which contribute towards building healthy lifestyles. Additionally, students with special talents in sporting disciplines benefit from the exposure to competition and can go all the way to the top. In fact, we were quite pleased with performance of our Combined Campuses Cricket (CCC) Team which participated in the recent regional cricket tournament. We are striving to develop and deliver academic programmes in the sports related areas also, so as to build top flight leaders and managers who can take sports to new heights in the Caribbean. All our campuses are committed to high academic quality, and we continue to stress the emphasis on excellence as we introduce our sport programmes. We want to see our students emerge as well-rounded individuals, and so our challenge is to balance this nexus between sport and scholarship, and we are going to build systems to effectively manage this component. At the same time, we at the UWI carry the flag of regionalism proudly and work hard to engender camaraderie and common purpose among our staff and students. Athletes representing the campuses of Mona, Cave Hill, St. Augustine and the Open Campus have gathered in their hundreds for the games and are competing in that spirit of healthy competition and sibling rivalry. As the games approached, a number of students were asked how they would base their support for teams. Many on the St Augustine Campus come from the other West Indian islands, and it was warming to see that in most instances, students chose to support their friends no matter where they had come from, and that they also felt a special affinity to the Campus they called home, even if temporarily. This is the spirit of togetherness that The UWI has tried to foster throughout its decades of existence, and as one of the only institutions that can still truly claim to be West Indian in its nature, we are proud that regional bonds continue to be formed and nurtured within our grounds, even within competitive parameters. Let the Games continue and I urge staff, students and the community to lend their support. Clement K. Sankat |
