Professor Eon Nigel Harris, the outgoing Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, made the rounds of its 13 regional graduation ceremonies for the last time in this role. Joel Henry spoke with him about his retirement and recollections on his final graduation tour.
I meet Professor Harris during the lull between ceremonies. It’s graduation season at The University of the West Indies, and he is on his graduation ceremony tour. As Vice-Chancellor of The UWI it’s been his duty to jet across the region, sitting on the stage at the Open Campus in St. Lucia, then to two ceremonies at Cave Hill in Barbados. He’d already attended a ceremony this Saturday morning at St. Augustine, with another to come that afternoon. And there was still the Mona Campus in Jamaica ahead of him. It was no wonder he seemed intensely cloistered and comfortable in the secluded room at the Office of the Campus Principal for our interview, away for a few moments from the ocean of blue gowns and expectant faces.
JH: Why have you demitted office?
ENH: I have been Vice-Chancellor for 10 years and for me they have been 10 really rewarding years. I really have reached a stage where most of what I wanted to get started has happened, and although they may not by any means be completed (it’s always a work in progress) I think this is the moment for me to step back and allow someone else to come in for there to be a refreshing of the university’s leadership. Every organisation should be like that. Ten years is enough for anyone within an organisation to do what he has set out to do. At that point it’s a good idea to step aside.
JH: What’s your next step?
ENH: My next step is enjoying my retirement. I am moving to St. Lucia. My wife and I have had a home in St. Lucia that precedes my coming to The UWI. We lived in the US, wanted to return to the Caribbean and we visited St. Lucia, where my wife has family, and we loved the place. So we returned within a few months and built a house.
In a weird sort of way, that is how I came to seek this job, because with the house, there was the commitment to come back to the Caribbean. And then this opportunity arose. I suspect that if we hadn’t made the decision to come to St. Lucia then I would have continued where I was in the US.
JH: So you finally get to live in the home you built?
ENH: Yes and it is brilliant. I could not have come back in any better way, in any better circumstance than has happened. I have been able to interact with a broad variety of movers and shakers within the University and without the University. There are exceptional people that I have come to know within the University, very talented people, creative people, that I certainly was not fully aware of living in the US.
JH: What was your first graduation like and where did it take place?
ENH: My very first graduation was at Howard University in 1968. It was very unlike anything here. It’s a two-hour ceremony with hundreds and hundreds of graduating students but only the people getting doctorate degrees actually get to go on stage and shake hands. We hear from the honorary graduates. And basically, at some point they tell the whole class to rise and everybody turns and puts a hood on each other. So I remember it, but it didn’t have the pomp and circumstance that graduations here have.
I confess that I never went to any other (laughter) and I got three more degrees. I think graduation is about family. Because I was away from Guyana, I was away from home for much of my life. So for graduation you need family. My children now, when they graduated, we were all there in numbers to cheer them on. I didn’t get that opportunity. I considered myself living in a form of exile when I was a student. Going to graduation would have meant nothing to me.
JH: You think that pomp and ceremony is a good thing?
ENH: Students are central players at graduations – students and their families. That is what it’s about. Every one of those engaged parties must feel a sense of accomplishment and joy. And so it is appropriate that there be pomp and circumstance because for many students they are the first in their family who are actually getting degrees. I understand the sort of excitement that takes place for graduation.
JH: But it can’t be easy for you to attend all these ceremonies.
ENH: From my side of it, it’s a lot. We do 13 graduation ceremonies. I attend all. I fly from place to place. It can be tedious. It is a challenge for anybody. It occupies four full weeks of your life. Your work has to come to a standstill. But, if one understands that universities are primarily about students and about students as contributors to societies, then this particular mark at which they transition for the first time from a learning mode to hopefully a working mode, it is really an important moment. And in that context, if you are a university administrator, it’s an obligation. You have to be there to help celebrate the event.
JH: I’m sure you have listened to and given many graduation speeches, taught many students, and been a student. If you had to distil the advice you give a new graduate, really true advice, what would you tell them?
ENH: At the graduation ceremony, usually a lot of advice is given. The honorary graduand does it, the Chancellor does it, plus the valedictorian does it. It’s not easy to say something original after all of that. But what I would tell students is to make the most of one’s life on this first phase of advanced learning. What do I mean by make the most of one’s life? I believe that the critical part of where one is going to go really doesn’t depend on the facts one has learned. Because many of those facts become obsolete quite quickly. It is the other parts of your life that become important. It is learning to learn that is important. It is learning how to interact with people and work with people. It is the ability to communicate. It is the ability to motivate people to achieve. It is the ability to be a loving parent and even if you are not a parent just a loving person to one’s family and people with whom one interacts. It is about being ethical, understanding right from wrong and doing the right thing.
To me, those are the key attributes and we speak to them, by the way, when we define the ideal UWI graduate. The so-called “soft skills” are what I believe are most important in carrying oneself forward in life. In my time I have met so many people, very bright people, but they are offensive. They just never developed skills of interaction. Some of them will do very well in their own little fields but when you often assess lives like that you wonder how fulfilled they can become.
I remember when I was younger with my children; I wanted them to do brilliantly in school. But as I matured, I set a standard that they could find a fulfilling and enjoyable way to earn a living and still become part of loving relationships with their families and children. It’s a minimum quality. I would certainly be happy if they went on and did great things but for me it isn’t the great things that you do, it’s really who you are as a person that I think is most important.
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