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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 2ND NOVEMBER, 2014
OUR PEOPLE
UT: Professor Aiyejina, what’s the next step for you?
FA:
I’m going to return to my creative writing. I will still do
some teaching for the Department (of Literary, Cultural
and Communications Studies) such as the Creative
Writing programme which I started in 2004 and I want
to see continue. I’m back on post-retirement contract to
keep that going. That and my own writing is what I will
be doing.
UT: So we can look forward to a new anthology?
FA:
Hopefully soon.
UT:
What do you think Dr. Cateau will bring to the position of
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education?
FA:
Dr. Cateau has been part of the management team in
the faculty since I became Dean and she has worked
very closely with me. She knows the ins and outs of the
faculty. She is a very dedicated worker, very focused and
she shares the vision that all of us have at the faculty.
So I am positive that she is going to take the faculty
forward to greater heights. I have total confidence in her
leadership.
UT: And what is that vision of the faculty?
FA:
We want to remain central to the intellectual,
philosophical and cultural development of the
community. As the Faculty of Humanities and Education,
we see ourselves as the ethical centre of the society.
We believe we should lead the way in making the
community better able to assess itself, to understand the
details of its identity they need to cultivate in order to
develop as a multicultural society.
When you look at all the various disciplines within the
faculty and their role in society you realise that while
we may not be seen as a “dollar and cents” faculty like
engineering and medicine and so on, without us the
society would be empty. We would have all the material
but we would be lacking the ethical and intellectual
understanding of what is of vital importance to the
society.
That is just one area in which I am particularly happy
with the kind of synergy between our faculty and the
Faculty of Engineering for example. The dean of that
faculty, Professor Brian Copeland is very aware that the
best engineers are those who are culturally grounded.
We are always talking about how we can collaborate.
I don’t know how many people know that in the
development of the G-pan and the PHI (innovative,
electric versions of the steelpan developed by Professor
Copeland) he had the help of the Department of Creative
and Festival Arts (DCFA). That synergy is very important.
The more the society recognises that we should not
have a dichotomy between the hard sciences and the
humanities, the better we will be for it.
UT: You spoke about the overall vision for the faculty, but
I’m sure you as dean brought your own stamp to that
vision.
FA:
You’ll have to ask other people that (laughter).
Everything I touched on before is in line with my outlook
for the faculty – which is in essence the centrality of the
humanities to the development of society. When this
country celebrated its 50th anniversary of independence,
one of the things the History Department did was to
take all the discussions to the various communities
instead of keeping them on the campus. We were all over
the country having seminars – Tobago, San Fernando,
Caroni, Port of Spain. I always believe personally that any
intellectual who wants to be effective has to be a public
intellectual. Not a closet intellectual, not an ivory tower
intellectual. And I have practised that in my involvement
with education all my life.
I started the Campus Literature Week, which has grown
from strength to strength over the years. I started the
(Master of Fine Arts in) Creative Writing programme. I am
very involved with the Cropper Foundation’s workshop
for emerging writers. I am part of the team that started
the Bocas Lit Fest. That is my way of taking the university
out there and making the community feel the impact of
what we do. It’s not just a question of coming here and
teaching students on campus. It is also about asking
what do we as a university have that we can take out
there to the community. In all these initiatives you will
see a similar collaboration between the university and
the larger world. My colleagues, such as Dr. Merle Hodge,
who has worked with me on the Cropper Foundation
since 2000, understand the power of that collaboration.
If you want me to typecast my vision, it has always
been that the university must always be relevant to
the community it serves, what I call the “enabling
community”. The community out there enables us to be
who we are and we must always be relevant to them. It
doesn’t mean that we will always do exactly what they
want us to do. We are in a community of ideas and we
have to work together to ensure that the ideas we go
forward with are good ideas.
UT: Are there things you would have liked to have done
during your tenure that you were not able to do?
FA:
Oh yes. My greatest regret, my greatest sadness that
I have in leaving the deanship is the fact that the
Department of Creative and Festival Arts does not have
a suitable home. It is something that we have tried over
and over to get done. I wouldn’t put it down as a failure
it is just something I could not get done because of
the cost and the financial situation on campus at this
moment. It is the saddest thing I can think of that up
to now we have not been able despite all the efforts of
the faculty and the university that we have not found
an appropriate home for the department. I would like
to add however that we have not stopped. We are
continuing and the new dean is going to fight to get it
done.
UT: Retirement must be bittersweet for you. You have
been at The UWI for the last two decades.
FA:
I believe in process. The process is clear: I’m 65 and it
is time to retire. So I was ready for retirement at 65.
Anything other than that would be defeating the
process. And retirement is not going to stop me from
doing any of the things I do anyway. I did exactly the
same things I did at the university that I did before I
got to the university. I have always been in the arts.
I was always about seeing how best to help other
people. It doesn’t mean now that I am retired that I
can’t be instrumental in the development of the arts.
Not at all. The Cropper Foundation is outside of my
university commitment, Bocas is outside of my university
commitment and I will continue with them.
As a matter of fact, it means that I now have more time
to devote to these things and more time to devote to
my own creative writing. I haven’t written any significant
work for awhile now. My last collection of poems would
have been published in 2006 or so. It is time for me to
go back and do my own writing. Also, one thing that I
am happy for with my retirement is thank God I have no
more meetings to go to (laughter). We have too many
meetings.
UT: Professor Aiyejina, is there anything you would like
to add?
FA:
Yes. I believe in The UWI. I believe UWI is a great
institution. I think that anybody in a leadership position
at UWI must always keep that at the forefront of their
mind – this is a great institution that people have
sacrificed to build and we have to make our own
sacrifices to ensure that the future inherits something
that is greater than it is now. I tell people all the time
that the only constituency I have is The University of
the West Indies. I do anything to make sure that that
constituency remains relevant and self-respecting, that
we do not prostitute ourselves for anything, because as
an intellectual institution we must set the bar for others
to follow. The moment we forget that, we are destroying
a great legacy that has been given to us.
“It’s time to say goodbye. It’s time to say goodbye,”
the children sang, mimicking the clapping of the teachers and guardians leading them in song. It was
“Teacher Appreciation Day,”
and
The UWI’s Family Development and Children’s Research Centre (FDCRC)
had two special visitors. Seated in front of a performance troupe of energised four year olds was the
new Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education,
Dr. Heather Cateau
and her predecessor,
Professor Funso Aiyejina
. And though the children’s song was meant as a farewell
to their guests, it carried another meaning for Professor Aiyejina, who after six years as Dean and well over two decades as a member of the Humanities Faculty, is retiring this year.
Award-winning short fiction writer, poet, playwright, educator and intellectual, the professor has arrived at the retirement age of 65. He looks almost identical to when he taught me
creative writing some 20 years ago. Still as vital, still driven by his deep love of the humanities and his confidence in their importance to society, he spoke with
UWI Today.
T h e P u b l i c I n t e l l e c t u a l
Professor Funso Aiyejina on retirement, writing and his university
Professor Aiyejina receives a farewell gift from a student on
behalf of The UWI FDCRC.
PHOTOS: Aneel Karim
