The following is an address to the 2020 graduating class of UWI St Augustine by Campus Principal Professor Brian Copeland.
After the events of early January, and I speak here of what many are calling “Capitol Wednesday”, I am moved to make some very brief comments to our UWI Graduating Class, who we celebrated this month, and the wider national community.
You are graduates of The UWI in a truly historic time. You came through even as the long drought of a recession came to the fore in the years preceding the pandemic and continues to this day. You persevered in continuing your studies during the lockdown, even as staff and student alike struggled to engage in teaching and learning online. It seems to me that you have the mettle of the kind of citizen our nations need at this point in time. Indeed, your participation in the online delivery makes you pioneers for a new UWI – a target that we have been shaping for all the years of my tenure as Campus Principal.
As graduates of The UWI, you are beneficiaries of a public spend that covered some 80 per cent of what it costs to educate you. I repeat my plea to you to use your experience not just to develop yourself in your chosen careers but, even as you do so, that you do all you can to continue the fight of forming a society that better addresses the problems we face today.
We cannot survive without land, air and water – yours is the collective challenge of addressing the critical issues to their preservation.
Our society cannot survive without a robust economy – yours is the collective challenge of leading the creation of the network of net foreign exchange earning enterprises that will dominate our economic landscape. I have challenged you before to start doing so by 2034.
Our society cannot survive if it implodes on itself because of an impossibly large income gap, runaway poverty, or even the level of bigotry and hatred we saw on display last Wednesday at the US Capitol. Yours is the challenge of fashioning a more emotionally mature and just society.
In keeping with these sentiments, I share with you a song that is very popular here in Trinidad and Tobago. While it is nationalistic in nature, I offer it as well to the non-Trinidad and Tobago citizens in our midst – to all Caribbean.
I wish you all success and prosperity.
PROFESSOR BRIAN COPELAND
Campus Principal
