2
UWI TODAY – SUNDAY 16 DECEMBER, 2018
70
th
ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE
FROM THE EDITOR
EDITORIAL TEAM
CAMPUS PRINCIPAL
Professor Brian Copeland
AG. DIRECTOR OF MARKETING
AND COMMUNICATIONS
Wynell Gregorio
EDITOR
Vaneisa Baksh
email:
CONTACT US
The UWI Marketing and
Communications Office
Tel: (868) 662-2002, exts. 82013 / 83997
or email:
This special issue of UWI TODAY
joins the 70th anniversary
celebrations of The UWI with a collectible edition that reproduces
some of our favourite features over its ten years of publication.
We’ve scoured our archives to make these selections, and it
was charmingly difficult to choose from the hundreds of stories that
truly tell the story of our University’s diverse range of research and
teaching over this past decade. Our pages have been a chronicle
of the life of the campus: the work of staff, students, visitors; the
events that stimulate mental growth like conferences, seminars,
lectures and workshops. It’s all there in the 111 issues that have
been produced so far.
We thought it fitting to remind readers of the outstanding
work, the support for the arts, sports and community involvement
with these reprints. We had a hard time narrowing it down, but you
don’t have to settle for this selection; you can find them all online
at the website where the full archive is available. All you have to
do is pay a visit to
and
browse to your heart’s content.
Take back the Light
For 70 years,
The UWI has been the light shining over our
Caribbean. We have walked with leaders, with business, and
civic society as we forged a way forward through colonialism,
independence, economic downturns, and global engagement.
Who would have imagined back in 1948 that the 2019
“Times Higher Education” World University Rankings would
placeThe UWI among the world’s top institutions? Our regional
University is among the 1,258 top universities for 2019 – an elite
band of the top 5% worldwide, based on data which show that
there are over 25,000 recognized universities globally. Of no
small note, is the fact that your UWI is the only Caribbean institution on this world-wide list.
Our faculty, staff, students, graduates and pioneers, along with every consecutive generation,
have stayed the course and kept their eyes on the goal: to advance learning, create knowledge
and foster innovation for positive transformation. Our graduates dot the global landscape, too
numerous to mention, and have made significant differences in the world.
In those seven decades, there has been progress but we acknowledge there should have
been more.
Scroll through our archives and the perennial problems still exist – crime, poverty, gender
discrimination, and underdevelopment. We can add to that growing list – climate change and
increasingly destructive natural disasters, drugs, financial markets, energy crises, terrorism,
poor governance, education, demographics, health care, food nutrition and security.
As economic uncertainties continue, we remain committed to creating an innovative and
entrepreneurial university and being a vital partner to Caribbean Governments, industry, and
the international community so as to secure regional sustainable development. This is not a task
for the faint-hearted and this goal – mission! – can only be achieved in a spirit of cooperation
and collaboration.
This region’s future depends on the creation of a strong culture of innovation in the
economy, in our ecology, and in our society. We must grasp the possibilities within us and use
our knowledge and our intellectual potential to build partnerships for creating initiatives and
policies that will make our economies more internationally competitive, forge a much more
comfortable, nurturing andmature Caribbean society, and protect and preserve our environment
for future generations. We must have a firm belief in ourselves and an even firmer belief that,
particularly in this technological age, there is absolutely no limit to what we can achieve.
Every year, young, bright graduates enter our places of work in the private and public
sector. Our success in the next 70 years will depend in no small way on the success of these
young people.
The Caribbean is home to a diversity of cultures and religions that all project light, hope
and renewal in the latter half of the year. At this time when Christmas lights surround, enthral
and engage us, The UWI must, now more than ever, take full responsibility for carrying the
torch in the ongoing fight against the looming darkness.
PROFESSOR BRIAN COPELAND
Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal
Excellent and Ethical
The UWI, says the “Times Higher Education,”
is among the finest universities in the world. It
is a celebrated part of that narrow band of elite
universities that does not seek to be politically elitist but
demographically accessible. All citizens are encouraged
to feel a part of the enterprise. The recent surge in
the regional and global recognition of its reputation
as an institution committed to inspiring people of
the Caribbean and beyond, rises from its relentless
provision of the evidentiary basis of the claim. And
for ten years UWI TODAY has been a primary vehicle on which critical assessments
of output have travelled from Faculty floors through domestic doors in Trinidad and
Tobago, the region, and the wider world.
It has been a site where the science of content-sifting has been perfected by
brilliant and bold editing. UWI TODAY has achieved an enviable reputation for its
high quality. As a forum it is as UWI as the pelican that binds us all as a family in
flight. Designed to discover the diversity of discourses within the academy, and to
share with society, it has been highly successful as a source of knowledge about the
intellectual and academic communities within the region.
Success did not rain from the sky. It represents at once a tribute to the conceptual
and technical expertise and leadership of editor, Vaneisa Baksh, especially, and the
commitment of colleagues determined to share their creativity. With the turning of
every page the reader feels the passion to assure communities that the team cares and
represents a reliable and dedicated force for good.
A bridge has been built that spans the spaces between the academe and the
citizen. It’s an arc that bends in the direction of a need for greater communication
with the communities that The UWI serves. The mantra is meaningful; those who
have research access to information, and possess the tools of knowledge creation,
must share findings with our funders: the public. The evidence found in each edition
is a piece of the process that informs its intention. UWI TODAY, therefore, can best
be read as a thousand testimonies told over ten years with pure passion.
Excellence and ethics must be sustained. Only the guidance of corresponding
values and virtues in its choices will assure the integrity of its pedagogy and fan the
flame to achieve even greater Faculty productivity. Being disruptive and innovative
is an internal ideology that speaks to the politics and policy of academic leadership.
The fevers that promote academic fertility do not always warm the hearts of
management, but they do provide valuable content for the paper on an ongoing basis.
Contention with content has therefore been a good thing. For these and many other
related reasons it is my pleasure and honour to celebrate the ten-year journey of UWI
TODAY, and to give thanks to the St. Augustine Campus for its empowerment of the
regional enterprise that is The UWI.
PROFESSOR SIR HILARY BECKLES
Vice-Chancellor
FROM THE PRINCIPAL
FROM THE VICE-CHANCELLOR
On a personal note, producing this edition was
especially gratifying, as it is the last one I will be editing.
It has been nearly ten years of continuous fascination
for me. I still marvel at how a small place with
limited resources can consistently create
such wonders, and I fully understand that
it is only possible because there are so
many exceptional people within our
precincts. It has been my privilege
to walk among them. As I leave The
UWI, I want to thank those who
have made it such a memorable
journey and to assure readers
that UWI TODAYwill continue
to keep you informed about the
life of our Campus.
VANEISA BAKSH
AJourneyofDiscovery
