Ryan Ba­choo

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus has con­grat­u­lat­ed Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo on her ap­point­ment to the es­teemed of­fice of Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Ex­tend­ing con­grat­u­la­tions on be­half of the re­gion­al UWI com­mu­ni­ty, Vice-Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les not­ed, “Re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly our alum­ni con­tin­ue to ex­cel in every sphere of pub­lic life, and we cel­e­brate the im­pact of our alum­ni every day. It is how­ev­er a spe­cial oc­ca­sion when one of our own as­cends to the high­est seats of lead­er­ship in the re­gion. As we cel­e­brate our 75th an­niver­sary and re­flect on our rich lega­cy of lead­ing Caribbean de­vel­op­ment, this is the kind of oc­ca­sion that re­in­forces the need for The UWI to con­tin­ue root­ed, ready and ris­ing.”

Her Ex­cel­len­cy Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo, who was in­au­gu­rat­ed on March 20, 2023 to serve as the sev­enth Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go, al­so has the ho­n­our of be­ing on­ly the sec­ond woman to hold the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go. She was pre­ced­ed by Pres­i­dent Paula May Weekes, an­oth­er UWI alum­na.

Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal of the St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, ex­pressed her im­mense pride to have wit­nessed the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, who is not on­ly a UWI alum­na but al­so a for­mer Min­is­ter of Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion. She looks for­ward to work­ing with her to sup­port their mu­tu­al goals and ob­jec­tives for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo grad­u­at­ed from The UWI and the Hugh Wood­ing Law School and was ad­mit­ted to prac­tice Law in 1985. An ac­com­plished le­gal mind and par­lia­men­tar­i­an, she has made his­to­ry be­fore as the on­ly per­son to serve both as Pres­i­dent and Vice Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate. Over her ca­reer, she has al­so served in a wide range of leg­isla­tive and min­istry port­fo­lios in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter of Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy and Ter­tiary Ed­u­ca­tion. She has act­ed in the po­si­tion of Pres­i­dent on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions and was elect­ed by a 48–22 se­cret bal­lot vote of the elec­toral col­lege.