Dame Sandra recognised for outstanding contribution to public service

Governor General Dame Sandra Mason has heralded the values buttressed at her alma mater, the University of The West Indies (The UWI) as one of the major reasons for her success in life.

During a special convocation ceremony at which The UWI conferred an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree in recognition of her outstanding contribution to public service, Dame Sandra emphasised that values such as integrity, intellectual freedom, excellence and civic responsibility were among the core values, which encompasses the university’s mandate.

In 1970, Dame Sandra was a student in the first cohort of the law faculty at Cave Hill. Since that time she has navigated a successful career, rising from an attorney, magistrate and judge. Now she sits at the pinnacle as Head of State. Quite recently she was nominated by Cabinet to serve as the first President as Barbados moves to become a republic by November 30.

Paying tribute to her family and colleagues, whom she noted had all played a significant role in her development, the GG expressed how deeply honoured and proud she was to be a product of the vision for The UWI. According to her, that vision rests in the understanding that to continue to fulfill the vision of bringing light, liberty and learning to our people it needed to definitively proclaim our Caribbeaness.

“The time had come for our people to go further and set about bending the history of the arc of our imposed postcolonial legal tradition, towards a jurisprudence more germane to us as an emancipated people. And it understood in order to do this we could no longer be found loitering on the doorsteps of the legal institutions of our erstwhile colonial masters. I proudly stand here today as a product of that vision and for that I thank the University of the West Indies,” Dame Sandra stated.

“Let me reiterate that we, the graduates of the Faculty of Law, owe this great institution an immeasurable debt of gratitude. In 1986 [National Hero the Right Excellent] Mr. [Errol] Barrow spoke of success and if for present purposes we want to equate success with having received our money’s worth and getting to know each other better, then it is indeed a time for rejoicing. But our gratitude is not measured by this or by the mass of book learning that we manage to assimilate. It is more because attendance at the University of the West Indies results in a complete education underpinned by the listed core values which guide the university’s mandate. The values of integrity, intellectual freedom, excellence civic responsibility, accessibility, diversity and  equity. Vice-chancellor the University of the West Indies has once again given me the cause for rejoicing and I am revelling in it,” she said.

Among those gathered in the intimate setting at Government House on Saturday evening was Dame Sandra’s son Matthew, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles,  Principal of the Cave Hill campus Professor Clive Landis and other friends and colleagues.

In his welcome, Sir Hilary described the affair as an historic moment of celebration, freedom and time to reflect the journey of Dame Sandra’s life.  A life that began in a small village in the rural parish of St Philip. Sir Hilary maintained that small villages produce enormous minds that are ready to take on the world because within them is embedded African sensibilities like respect for family, love of your neighbour, conversations about the future, respect for discipline and respect for elders. This he believed laid a solid foundation for Dame Sandra as “a legal mind, the ideal citizen, a consciousness forged around the principle of service”.

“It was that mentality that found its way to the Cave Hill campus and enabled our Dame to be in the first cohort of law students 50 years ago at the Cave Hill campus. One of the finest law faculties globally. And so our Dame was there at the beginning, today 73 years later our university is celebrating its journey to the top of the finest universities systems in the world. We are now ranked in the top 1.5 per cent of the best universities in the world from a field of some 30, 000. We are the number one in the  Caribbean from a field of over 150 and we are in the top one per cent of the best universities in the Caribbean and Latin America from a  field of some 5,000.

“This journey of citizen and campus and university has been the struggle for the creation and perfection of democracy within our Caribbean. There is no university in the world that can say it has a finer record of commitment to social justice as our university of the West Indies. We have been here from 1948 fighting for democracy, fighting for decolonisation, fighting for independence, fighting social justice, fighting for equal rights for women, fighting for justice in all of our institutions and now today pushing forward even forward the decolonisation of our economies and societies,” Sir Hilary said.

“This has been the journey of our university. This is a journey away from the scaffold in which this island was wedded to imperialism in 1627 by  the British. An island dedicated to the service of King Charles the second who also declared in 1636 that all black people on this island will forever be chattel, chattel slaves … What a moment this is. History hurrying to the future. A woman held aloof. A UWI woman from a fine university. A university that is elite but rejects elitism. Our honouree graduate, solid, scholarly and serene. This is an historic moment.” (KC)