September 2019


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On Wednesday, August 28, a host of fresh-faced first-year students came together with the campus community at UWI St Augustine’s Sport and Physical Education Centre (SPEC) for “UWI Life”. The annual student orientation day event and part of the First year Experience (FYE) programme, UWI Life gives newcomers an opportunity for information, interaction and fun. In his UWI Life address, Campus Principal Professor Brian Copeland used the FYE theme “Dare to Be” to challenge the new students to strive for more in their time at UWI and beyond. Included below is an abbreviated version of his address.

My dear students, it is truly my pleasure to officially welcome you to our campus and to thank you for making the choice to #BeUWI! But I need to warn you that today, you are at the start of a journey that goes very quickly. You may not be old enough to realise it but, if you think of it, you would realise that time is not measured by the tick on the clock but by the passage of events marked by the number of activities that you will be engaged in. Just imagine, you will be back in this very space within the next three to five years for your graduation and you will remember today as if it were yesterday. Take a moment to take that all in… and, by the way, welcome to adulthood.

A university is traditionally defined as a place of higher education where students work towards a degree and where staff teach and/or engage in ground-breaking research. More recently, universities have become places where we discover, gather and disseminate new knowledge as before but then begin the process of applying that new knowledge to world problems. Some of you will have the opportunity to participate in that knowledge discovery and application process even as you work towards your degree. In the ultimate, you will be breaking new boundaries and casting away old concepts. For all our achievements, mankind does not have knowledge of all things.

Your presence here this morning is a clear sign that you have taken that first step to equip yourself with the knowledge, the tools, the experiences, and the network on your lifelong journey of becoming, of being all that you can be. I want to warn you: this journey of becoming requires determination, focus, and action. In this regard, I have some challenges to issue to you this morning.

Many of you have heard or seen that the theme of your First Year Experience programme is "Dare to Be”. With that in mind, I want you to remember that theme and to fully realise that you have the power to become. My experience suggests that many of the limitations that prevent us from realising our fullest potential are embedded in the grey matter that lies between our ears. So, regardless of your circumstance, the influence of friends, family and others around you, it is really up to you. All you need is the courage to be.

Quick story: George Dantzig is recognised as a mathematician who discovered linear programming. Linear programming is a family of mathematical optimisation techniques that have proved effective in solving resource allocation problems, particularly those found in industrial production systems. How Dantzig solved this problem is a clear example of the power of the mind. He arrived late to class one day and copied two homework problems that were on the blackboard. He took longer than the submission deadline to hand in his homework solutions but the lecturer accepted it when he finally did so. Six weeks later, Dantzig found his professor, Jerzy Neyman, banging excitedly on the front door of his apartment. What Dantzig had copied off the blackboard was not homework but examples of two famous unsolved problems in statistics. One of them was the linear programming problem. Neyman wanted to send out one of his papers for immediate publication. I doubt Dantzig would have solved that problem if he knew they were not homework problems.

So, I dare you.

I dare you to choose the path that requires you to “go beyond”. As Alexander Haig, former United States Secretary of State said “Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.” Do not settle for “good enough”, as so many of our counterparts do, but rather “go beyond” those limitations as Alexander Haig has recommended. Remember too that there is no such thing as overnight success. Life doesn’t give its rewards that easily. At the very least you have to set goals, plan the work, and then faithfully and often painstakingly work the plan.

I dare you to let your voice be heard. As you go beyond and stretch your imagination, you will sometimes risk being unpopular. But as the saying goes, a lot of progress can be attributed to people who took unpopular positions and went beyond the boundaries of knowledge. As unpopular as he is today, the one thing about Christopher Columbus that I admire is that at a time when the popular European belief was that of a flat earth, he had the courage and conviction to travel beyond the horizon and otherwise.

So, in the classroom, in the guild, in student associations, let your voice be heard. Significantly, dare to challenge your lecturers and what is presented as knowledge in your texts and scholarly papers – academics are also on a path of learning and knowledge discovery. Be a leader, even if it’s within that space of your theories and convictions but make sure that they are based on fact and can be defended. Recall again that this is a university. It is not high school. It is not forms 7 and beyond. The new knowledge that I spoke of will not be attained if we sit in our knowledge comfort zone, never venturing to even pelt a brick at the boundaries of current knowledge.

I dare you to bring your ideas to the fore. This is aligned to my last dare but goes a bit further. Did you know that you are joining our campus community at a very opportune time? We are ushering in a new and probably long overdue era of innovation and entrepreneurship. We are setting up systems and processes that will support the development of your new potentially innovative ideas to the point of commercialisation. The aim here is to strengthen our vulnerable Caribbean economies by flooding it with small and medium enterprises that are lead by you and your colleagues. Your mission is to collectively establish that new economy by the year 2034 – that is not far away. This is really an urgent matter. Start by engaging in intuitive thinking, motivated by problems waiting to be solved but grounded in learned facts. This often leads to the most brilliant designs, inventions and innovations.

I dare you to be committed to the vision of those who established this institution back in 1948 and take on the challenges I have given you to join in the mission to use our research, our knowledge, and our innate creativity, to deliver solutions to issues plaguing every country in the Caribbean. The big ones are poverty, crime, economic instability and ecological sustainability. Your mission cannot be a self-serving one – no man, they say, is an island. So again, collectively, we must create a sustainable economy, a sustainable society and a sustainable ecology for the peoples of this region. Dare to want more for your country, your region, your family, and yourselves.

Last but not least, dare to connect with fellow students from the region, Latin America and beyond. There will be more than enough opportunity to do so. UWI is now global in many respects, having set up centres on almost every continent and has established exchange arrangements with counterpart institutions almost everywhere.

Students, I wish you every success during your UWI life-changing experience. As UWI students and UWI alumni, may you live long and prosper. Thank you.

Professor Brian Copeland
Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal

EDITORIAL TEAM

Campus Principal: Professor Brian Copeland
Director of Marketing and Communications (Ag): Mrs Wynell Gregorio
Editor (Ag): Joel Henry (Email:joel.henry@sta.uwi.edu)

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