tidings
Janelle De Souza
Vice-Chancellor and Campus Director of UWI St Augustine Prof Rose-Marie Belle Antoine is poised to take UWI to the forefront of TT’s societal innovation and healing.
In her inaugural address during her induction ceremony at the Daaga Auditorium, UWI, St Augustine, on Saturday night, UWI’s first female principal and first principal outside the legal fraternity said, at the end of the day she wanted people reminiscent of the “humanistic, intellectual force” of UWI.
“I intend to put this (social justice and rights) at the heart of what we do at UWI, St Augustine. For me, the meaning of civil liberties, like equality, lies in economic and social rights, embedded in education, health, work, water and the environment.”
She said that as a young woman she wanted to improve her life and that was still her goal. She said the law allowed her to speak up for those who could not in the pursuit of social justice and help create a Caribbean society that the people of the region could be proud of.
“My drive then and now was simply to be disruptive to the status quo where it’s not really working for its purpose or for the majority of our citizens.”
Belle Antoine believed that the collective voice of the UWI needed to be stronger and more widely recognized around the world, to inform debate on important issues. She wanted the average person to recognize and appreciate innovations that contribute to society, and for stakeholders to look to UWI to do the important development work of the region.
“It is an absolute imperative that we bring science, not only to policy makers, but to the people. To have real impact and help save the planet themselves, the average citizen needs to identify with it, experience it, believe in it.”
She also believed that research and scholarship should be “taken to the people” in communities and by partnering with NGOs. As a result, discussions were in progress about changing the way people could access education at UWI.
“In my real development education framework, I propose a more progressive approach to access, expanding to the underserved and the forgotten. We have been desensitized to socio-economic and socio-cultural, even ethnic and gender constraints to access education, especially in our professions. Admissions can no longer be based simply on CAPE scores.”
She said UWI would like to consider other attributes such as leadership skills and extracurricular activities.
Other changes are already in progress.
She said the campus was starting to “go green”, working with Blue Waters to set up a recycling station, the campus already had patented products and was looking for manufacturers, and there is a new Sunday Newsday series called UWI On The Ground.
There were also plans to create an Ansa McAl/UWI venture fund, a UWI Global Offshore Medical School, and last month a contract was awarded to build a cocoa factory.
Before her speech, Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles highlighted other UWI initiatives.
He noted that the governments of Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua and Barbuda agreed to dedicate the lands on which UWI operates from leasehold to freehold to facilitate private-public entrepreneurial activities.
“Just four days ago, we joined Prime Minister (Gaston) Browne in Antigua and Barbuda to secure an $80 million Saudi Development Fund loan to build the Five Islands Campus into a state-of-the-art academy. “
He added that two months ago the renaming of the Open Campus to the Global Campus and the creation of a company to begin global marketing of Caribbean knowledge was approved.
Many dignitaries were present, including the Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Philip J Pierre, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Saint Lucia Claudius Francis, Chief Justice Ivor Archie, Attorney General Reginald Armour, Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Chief of Santa Rosa First Peoples Community, Richardo Hernandez, ministers and parliamentarians and former directors of UWI St Augustine.
