Sir Hilary Beckles, returned as Vice-Chancellor, on UWI’s ‘extraordinary year’

Despite “a most extraordinary” year, the University of the West Indies has managed to put out a “sterling” performance, rising above the challenges that posed a threat to its existence, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles declared Friday, hours before his tenure as the university’s ninth Vice-Chancellor was renewed.

Late Friday, the Jamaica Gleaner reported that Sir Hilary’s five-year term as Vice-Chancellor was renewed by the university council.

Presenting his 2019/2020 year in review report to the university council, Sir Hilary pointed out that the COVID-19 pandemic came on the heels of devastations from recent hurricanes and against the background of continued struggles in the region with the scourge of non-communicable diseases.

This, he noted, was a “cocktail of disaster”, not only for the university but for regional governments.

Sir Hilary said: “It has been a year of sterling performance by the UWI, against the background of these developments that pose an existential threat not only to our institution, our UWI, but to our region.

“But like our region, our university has stood its ground. It has stood its ground in the manner that is consistent with a first class university. It dispelled all doubt and proceeded with confidence in its service to this region.”

He highlighted several of the university’s triumphs over the past two years in the areas of financial management and institutional reform, sports, strengthening of partnerships, high international rankings, the early establishment of a COVID-19 Task Force, and the establishment of committees to help restructure various aspects of UWI’s operations.

“I describe 2020 as the year of the UWI rising to assist our governments in this region with this public health pandemic,” said Sir Hilary. “I have described the year 2020 as UWI’s finest hour… because we were able to become a part of the network of our governments, medical practitioners and community health workers in order to save lives.”

The report was presented in two parts: a video outlining the background to some of the successes over the past year titled UWI, the Journey to the Top, followed by a presentation by Sir Hilary outlining the status of some initiatives and the direction in which officials intended to take the learning institution.

Sir Hilary again pointed to the halving of the university’s debt, the 2019-2024

10-point finance plan, and the ‘ten-in-two plan’ – designed to reduce spending by ten per cent in two years.

The university has already witnessed a six per cent reduction in expenditure for 2019 and another six per cent reduction in 2020, he said.

Declaring that the tertiary education institution had gone through a “reputation revolution”, Sir Hilary said it was now in “an aggressive revolutionary moment of revenue acceleration”.

“The university leadership is not an ad hoc affair, it isn’t a hit and miss affair. It is science and art combined within a strategy of identifying steps of achievements and having those steps recognized before launching to the next step,” he said.

His report comes amidst strong criticism of the UWI’s current financial model and on the heels of the Robert Bermudez-commissioned governance report, which highlighted several shortcomings in the university’s operation when it came to governance, transparency and accountability. It also provided some recommendations.

The renowned Barbadian historian, who has already responded to aspects of the report, steered clear of explicitly speaking to it or the reported “strong opposition” from the Jamaican and Trinidadian governments to the renewal of his contract as Vice-Chancellor.

Sir Hilary further pointed to transformation within the university, highlighting the institution’s ability to quickly adapt to an online teaching environment, which he said would play a critical role in reducing expenditure.

“If we develop this ‘one UWI’ solution what we call the federal strategy, we can reduce the cost of our operations even more. The digital transformation moment is now here and now we can deal with the back-office shared services strategy, [which] is the future to reducing the expenditure of the entire eco-system of UWI and passing those savings on to governments and students,” he said.

Further highlighting plans in the pipelines, the Vice-Chancellor said it was agreed that the UWI would build out a “global [online] campus build upon the platform of the Open Campus” in the next two to three years with financial help from global partners.

He said support from some global partners has already been secured, one of them being the recent $50 million (US$25 million) grant from the Silicon Valley-based software company Eon Reality towards the planned Open Campus development.

He also reported that Guyanese government has pledged to develop the country as “a hub for higher education” with the help of the UWI Open Campus, which he said would be tasked with providing professional training for some 4,000 Guyanese public servants through online training and development.

He said the university also continued to develop its partnership with SUNY-UWI Centre in New York and would strengthen ties with the Brock University’s Canada-Caribbean Institute to facilitate studies in areas of tourism, immigration, agriculture innovation, and climate change, among others.

Chancellor of the UWI Robert Bermudez also expressed sadness at the losses suffered by the people of St Vincent as a result of the La Soufrière volcano and most recent flooding, while pledging the readiness of the UWI to provide support.

Pointing out that the pandemic had upended the plans of students across the region, Bermudez said officials should appreciate how stressful the situation has been and should therefore be empathetic to their needs.

“Their future is important to us and none of them must be allowed to fall through the cracks,” said Bermudez, who congratulated the UWI officials for the quick conversion of classes to an online method.
(marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)