Michelle Loubon

UWI prin­ci­pal Prof Clement Sankat says the Caribbean is wit­ness­ing a glob­al food and en­er­gy cri­sis and mas­sive shifts in the fi­nan­cial cli­mate that threat­en our way of life in the Caribbean.

He al­so said the ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion must be pre­pared to rise to glob­al prob­lems fac­ing the re­gion by har­ness­ing the in­tel­lec­tu­al po­ten­tial of its peo­ple.

He made these com­ments while de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress at 60 (1948-2008) The Gala black-tie fund-rais­ing din­ner at Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day night.

Sankat said, "And, so, tonight, if we are joy­ful, it is not be­cause we fool our­selves. We know to­mor­row will come. And we can on­ly imag­ine what breed of dif­fi­cult and in­ter­re­lat­ed chal­lenges will con­front our chil­dren.

"But while we cel­e­brate this evening, we al­so em­brace our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as the re­gion­al uni­ver­si­ty, to pre­pare col­lab­o­ra­tive and in­no­v­a­tive re­gion­al re­spons­es to the glob­al prob­lems of the new age."

Sankat said he felt con­tin­u­ous progress and growth could on­ly be achieved "by har­ness­ing the great in­tel­lec­tu­al pow­er, re­search ca­pac­i­ty and in­no­v­a­tive po­ten­tial of the re­gion's pre­mier ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion, the UWI, and lever­ag­ing all those re­sources to the ser­vice of the re­gion whose peo­ple make our very ex­is­tence and con­tin­ued suc­cess pos­si­ble."

He al­so said hope lay in the peo­ple of the Caribbean; as­sum­ing in­di­vid­ual re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for its sur­vival for an­oth­er 60 years and be­yond.

"Our great hope is you. It is for you this uni­ver­si­ty has tire­less­ly laboured since its in­cep­tion and it is you whom we will con­tin­ue to serve faith­ful­ly for the next six decades."

He added, "One of the main goals this year has been to broad­en, strength­en and to deep­en our net­work of al­liances with you, the peo­ple of this re­gion, with our busi­ness and in­dus­try, gov­ern­ments, alum­ni and per­haps, most im­por­tant­ly, our chil­dren."

The at­ten­dees

Among those present were chan­cel­lor Sir George Al­leyne, vice chan­cel­lor Prof E Nigel Lewis, Min­is­ter of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and Prof Gur­mo­han Kochar.

Uni­ver­si­ty reg­is­trar William Iton, for­mer deputy cam­pus prin­ci­pal Prof Brid­get Br­ere­ton, and Prof Win­ston Mel­lowes, Chair of the 60th An­niver­sary Com­mit­tee and Prof Bri­an Copeland, re­cip­i­ent of the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go for his in­no­va­tion on the G pan.

Though gone to the great be­yond, Sankat made ref­er­ence to the found­ing fa­thers like Sir Arthur Lewis, who was ho­n­oured with a se­ries of com­mem­o­ra­tive lec­tures.

About the gala

The gala was the cul­mi­na­tion of cel­e­bra­tions. The 60th an­niver­sary al­so was marked with a church ser­vice at Cave Hill cam­pus, Bar­ba­dos, un­der the stew­ard­ship of prin­ci­pal Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, and a gath­er­ing of the alum­ni at Mona, Ja­maica, with prin­ci­pal Gor­don Shirley at the helm.

It was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ho­n­our Di­a­mond stake­hold­ers with art­work pro­duced by Jack­ie Hink­son. Prof Gur­mo­han Kochar chaired this as­pect of the pro­ceed­ings.

Among the re­cip­i­ents were Petrotrin Ex­ec­u­tive Chair­man Dr Mal­colm A Jones, NGC Pres­i­dent Frank Look Kin, bpTT VP Com­mu­ni­ca­tions and Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Giselle Thomp­son and Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd's Char­maine Ca­ballero.

Each di­a­mond stake­hold­er would have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­vel­op grad­u­ate pro­grammes to the val­ue of $600,000. Con­tri­bu­tions will go to­wards schol­ar­ship do­na­tions and re­search equip­ment.

It al­so was an op­por­tu­ni­ty to thank emer­ald spon­sors who would part­ner with UWI to­wards the fund­ing, con­struc­tion and out­fit­ting of rooms in the hall of res­i­dence.

Ru­by stake­hold­ers would give a cor­po­rate gift of $6,000.

Al­leyne de­liv­ered the vote of thanks in which he laud­ed the "mag­nif­i­cent ob­ses­sion" of the found­ing fa­thers.

En­ter­tain­ment was pro­vid­ed by the fes­ti­val arts chorale UWI led by Jes­sel Mur­ray and ca­lyp­son­ian Dr Leroy Cal­liste, who was con­ferred with an hon­orary doc­tor­ate.