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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 14 JULY 2019
SUNDAY 14 JULY 2019 – UWI TODAY
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Dare toBe!
Making First Year a positive year
A new un i ve r s i t y
student’s first year
experience is often like
entering a new world.
For many, it’s a rite
of young adulthood.
For others, it is a
journey into further
education after years
o f wo r k a nd l i f e
experience.
For mo s t , t he
campus is a sprawling
setting, an enclosed
community of thousands, brimming with challenges,
friendships, experiences, and opportunities for
development.
All usually find it difficult to navigate. That is why
the St. Augustine Campus developed FYE – First Year
Experience.
“Students really want support,” says Jarell Alder
programme coordinator in the Division of Student
Services Development (DSSD).
He would know. His responsibility for designing
quality student programming that engages students and
enriches their lives on campus makes Jarell well-versed
in the student experience. One such initiative isThe UWI
St Augustine FYE.
FYE, UWI’s annual student orientation, targets
undergraduate and postgraduate students. Through a
holistic compilation of all orientation and transition
events, students can embrace every aspect of university
life.
“Holistic” is a key word in FYE. DSSDdoes its best to
reach all students through sub-programmes - for persons
with disabilities, international and regional students,
mature students, postgraduate students, students new to
residential life on campus, and even commuting students.
But “holistic” also applies to the students themselves
- as in their holistic development:
“Student programming contributes to the creation of
global citizen. A global citizen is not just someone who is
intelligent. It is someone who is holistic in their thinking
and involvement,” says Jarell.
It is this aspect of the field that drew the young
professional, himself a UWI alumnus, to the occupation.
“I have found great purpose in student services. You
are in a position of influence. You are dealing with the next
generation of leaders, people who are going to change the
landscape, not just of the country, but at a global level. I
really find it inspiring.”
UWI Smart Start
is the first rung in the FYE ladder.
A pre-university orientation programme for prospective
students, Smart Start helps them understand the realities
of campus life. For students who have been accepted
to UWI, information and access services are at their
fingertips – online – and, physically, at faculty offices
and the DSSD.
At the time of writing, there were also plans to create
a closed Facebook group for students who have been
given an offer to attend UWI St Augustine.
“Students should know that we are grateful they
have made the choice to #BeUWI on the St. Augustine
Campus. We are taking a rigorous approach and unified
approach to ensure that, at every touchpoint, the campus
is working in their best interest,” says Jarell.
The FYE theme for this Academic Year is
‘Dare to
Be’
and The UWI St. Augustine Campus is ensuring that
each student is equipped to face the challenges ahead and
to fulfil all they were meant to be.
STUDENT CENTREDNESS FEATURE
BOOKS
2019/2020 GUILD PRESIDENT JUSTIN SUBERO
Reframing the Student Guild
“Take yourself seriously,’ said Ewart Williams,
former
Governor of the Central Bank, Chairman of The UWI St
Augustine Campus Council, and well-known and regarded
citizen of Trinidad and Tobago.
He was responding to a question about what advice he
would give today’s UWI students. Meeting Justin Subero,
the new President of UWI St Augustine’s Guild of Students
Council, it seems clear he’s a believer in the Williams
approach.
Not that he is overly stern or serious - on the contrary,
Justin is an amiable young man. But, when he speaks about
the vision that he and his team have for the Guild and the
entirety of the student body, it’s clear that he is very serious
about the responsibilities of leadership.
“I want students to understand the importance of the
Guild and the work that we do,” he says. “We represent them
at very high-level committees and boards.”
They are the official representatives of the student
body to UWI and sit on the university’s planning, finance,
and academic committees and attend regional meetings on
behalf of the students.
“Many students don’t realise the impact that Student
Government has on a university. Our job is to change the
culture so that they aremore in tune with the entire process.”
The Guild of Students is responsible for a host of
campus activities and events. Campus Carnival, Caribbean
Integration Week and inter-faculty games, for example, all
aim to enrich students and campus life.
Subero and his team won the election in March 2019,
succeeding the Council headed by Darrion Narine. Justin,
who was the Secretary of that Council, notes that there is
continuity between the strategic plan of his predecessor and
the current plan.
He has his own goals as President: “my plan is to bring
back a proper framework and structure for the Guild. I think
that has been lacking for the last couple years.”
As part of this agenda the new Council (25 members
including the Executive, hall chairpersons, faculty
representatives and special committee chairs) has reinstated
the position of Guild Librarian. The goal is to foster
accountability in the Guild.
The son of Sheldon Subero, a former senior officer in
the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment, Justin attributes his
discipline and desire to make a positive contribution to his
father. He was also influenced by his older brother Darien, a
UWI graduate who was also a member of a Guild Council.
He believes his greatest attribute is “consistency” and
the young leader will need it. Entering his final year in
the rigorous computer science programme, he now has to
deal with the added labours and responsibilities of Guild
President – a president with an ambitious agenda.
“It’s tough,” he smiles. “But I have an amazing team….
And I’m somebody that likes a challenge.”
Serious indeed.
Student Guild Council President Justin Subero.
PHOTO: ATIBA CUDJOE
Guild President Subero (centre) at the swearing in ceremony with the members of the Guild Executive (from left) Devon Harris, Guild
Postgraduate Representative; Nathanael John, Guild Vice President; Darweshi Gyton-Baptiste, Guild Treasurer; and Teshanna Mohammed,
Guild Secretary.
PHOTO: ANEEL KARIM
In
Trio
, the ninth story
of Opal Adisa’s anthology
L o v e ’s P r om i s e
, t h e
remorseful narrator tells
the story of an affair with
her daughter’s husband, and
getting pregnant. She says,
“
me really, really need to tell
someone and get it off my
chest cause it’s like a dead
horse lying on top of me
.”
The reader feels the
weight as well - of remorse,
shame, and loss. It’s a hard
read, not what you’d expect
from a book described as a “sweet respite”.
“Women really hate this story,” Professor Adisa laughs.
“Love is such a strange thing. For me part of my job as a
writer is to try and get people to understand and be less
judgmental. Not to condone, because I don’t condone it. But
things happen and I’m trying inmy work to understand the
complexity of emotions.”
Surprisingly, that search for understanding is what
stands out most about the 11 stories that make up
Love’s
Promise
. It is, as the introduction by Professor Carole Boyce
Davies of Cornell University says, “a refreshing mélange of
joys and sadness”.
Love’s Promise
is a rigorous examination of human
emotion. Adisa has thought about love, and she’s thought
about it very deeply.
Professor Opal Palmer Adisa is an award-winning
writer and performer as well as the Director of the Institute
of Gender and Development Studies (IGDS) at The UWI’s
Mona Campus in Jamaica. She’s a feminist and Caribbean
woman, deeply invested in the culture of the region. The
great joy of speaking with her is listening to how she unveils
the intricate inner architecture of ideas on the things she is
passionate about - womanhood (and manhood), the arts,
cultural preservation, and of course love.
Professor Adisa was in Trinidad and Tobago at UWI
St Augustine in June to launch
Love’s Promise
along with
Interviewing the Caribbean
. The ceremony, at the campus’
Alma Jordan Library, attracted several well-known writers,
artists, educators, and lovers of the arts.
Interviewing the Caribbean
, created in 2015, is a cultural
journal that includes interviews with prominent writers,
artists and gender activists. Subjects include legendary
painter Lerory Clarke, author Earl Lovelace, Professor of
Gender and Principal ofThe UWI Cavehill Campus Eudine
Barriteau, and UWI St Augustine’s own Principal, Professor
Brian Copeland.
She views this publication as a much-needed tool for
cultural preservation:
“Our culture is rich but it’s dying. I find that many of
the younger people are not in tune with our stories. Even
at Mona we have an obelisk with the names of the men
and women who worked that plantation before it became a
university and a lot of the students are totally oblivious to
it. They never seem to take the time to reflect and to say ‘I
am here because of those people’.”
“My nieces and nephews know no Anansi stories,” she
says.
Growing up on the Caymanas Estate (a sugar estate
about 15 miles from Kingston, Jamaica), Adisa was deeply
connected to the culture and land.
“I had that immense space to roam. And I used to
Roaming the landscape of
LOVE AND CULTURE
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
Professor Adisa with author Earl Lovelace at the book launch at the
Alma Jordan Library on June 11.
PHOTOS: ANEEL KARIM
roam. I was considered a tom boy because the gender
equality thing wasn’t there. I climbed trees and jumped off
buildings as a little girl. I went to the canals and swam with
my brothers (she has two brothers and a sister). I went into
the woods with my slingshot. My brothers allowed me to
be with them. I was curious.”
That seeking, roaming and curious nature is all over her
work. She’s free of cliché like only an inquisitive mind can
be. Deeply feminist, she speaks of Caribbean women like
her mother and the “community of the market”.
“My mother used to take me to the market and there
was something about the women there who were their own
persons. I saw the way they bonded together if someone
tried to rob them, that camaraderie,” she says. “Just about
all of my stories, even though they feature men, the primary
protagonists are women. The woman’s energy is very much
a big part of the Caribbean.”
Still, she wants the “war between men and women” to
stop: “there is a kind of imbalance that has happened in the
last 30 years. We’ve looked at the imbalance of women and
now we are seeing there is an imbalance of men. How do
we rectify that? How do we find a way to look at both men
and women and what our specific needs are in the society?
How can we best support each other?”
Love’s Promise
is filled with this kind of wisdom. The
book, she says, is about love “but not all love is pretty love.”
The anthology includes supernatural stories such as
The
Living Roots,
stories that look at the abuse women face such
Matrimony,
the love of mother and children
,
and yes, “pretty
love” stories such as the title story itself,
Love’s Promise
.
Professor Adisa has several writing projects either
ongoing or planned while managing to discharge a very
demanding administrative position as IGDS Director. And,
of course, there is
Interviewing the Caribbean.
Adisa has
personally conducted and written many of the interviews.
How does she do it all?
“My head is always filled with stories and ideas,” she
says, smiling.
But more than the ideas, is the inclination, to climb,
jump and swim through their terrain.
“Love is such a strange thing. For
me part of my job as a writer is to
try and get people to understand
and be less judgmental. Not to
condone, because I don’t condone
it. But things happen and I’m
trying in my work to understand
the complexity of emotions.”
Jarell Alder
