Natasha Said­wan

Pro­duc­tion Ed­i­tor

natasha.said­wan@guardian.co.tt

If bias, ar­ro­gance, be­ing bor­ing, and con­de­scend­ing are the top traits list­ed for uni­ver­si­ty prin­ci­pals, then the 2014 study done by re­searcher Blasko­va et al did not in­clude Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine.

Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal of the UWI St Au­gus­tine since Au­gust 2022, and for the next four years, Prof An­toine dis­pelled all stig­ma as­so­ci­at­ed with heads of ter­tiary acad­e­mia.

Out­fit­ted in a flo­ral wrap dress, Prof An­toine sat with Guardian Me­dia at her of­fice on cam­pus. It was full of colour and cre­ativ­i­ty, much like its res­i­dent. But the tall stacks of la­belled fold­ers lit­tered on top of an over­sized ma­hogany desk re­vealed the mag­ni­tude of work this prin­ci­pal faces every day.

Her rep­u­ta­tion as a thought leader puts the in­sti­tu­tion on firm foot­ing for mon­i­tor­ing, man­ag­ing, and train­ing an ad­min­is­tra­tion, lead­ing strate­gic de­vel­op­ment, en­sur­ing the sus­tain­abil­i­ty of re­search and de­vel­op­ment, and em­pow­er­ing staff and stu­dents.

Prof An­toine de­scribed her­self as in­de­pen­dent, prin­ci­pled, de­ter­mined, coura­geous, an­ti-bu­reau­crat­ic and cre­ative.

“As a child, I would al­ways do things dif­fer­ent­ly, I saw things dif­fer­ent­ly. I was nev­er part of the main­stream, some call it un­ortho­dox, ec­cen­tric, it was just me,” she added.

This dif­fer­ence has led many in the re­gion to de­scribe her as a change agent and one of the lead­ing au­thor­i­ties in in­ter­na­tion­al law and labour law.

“I marched to my own drums; as a child, this was prob­lem­at­ic, as a leader, it tends to be­come a good qual­i­ty.”

Ac­cord­ing to the pro­fes­sor, the most im­por­tant life val­ue for her is eq­ui­ty.

“Eq­ui­ty, in all forms, is the thing I am most pas­sion­ate about. I have be­come part of the de­vel­op­ment of change through­out the years be­cause I see so much in­equity.

“It’s the rea­son I did law be­cause I was in­ter­est­ed in so­cial re­form and still am. Ed­u­ca­tion is a tool to­wards that de­vel­op­ment, to­wards re­form and as a lawyer, law is a so­cial en­gi­neer to fa­cil­i­tate that change.”

In terms of mod­el­ling this in her work, Prof An­toine said trans­paren­cy was very im­por­tant to her.

“One of the first things I did in this po­si­tion was lis­ten­ing tours. I walked around the cam­pus to see for my­self. Prin­ci­pal­ships tend to be re­mote, but I don’t sub­scribe to that. I am open to meet­ings. I al­so at­tend as many ac­tiv­i­ties as pos­si­ble on the cam­pus. I think it is im­por­tant to be present,” she added.

But change does not come with­out chal­lenges.

“Cyn­i­cism on all fronts is a chal­lenge ... we must fight against this grow­ing cyn­i­cism that ed­u­ca­tion is not valu­able, whether it is the or­di­nary per­son on the street or the pol­i­cy mak­ers.

“In law, peo­ple feel jus­tice is out of their reach. They don’t be­lieve in it; they think it’s on­ly for the rich.

“Lack of fund­ing, which is re­lat­ed to the cyn­i­cism, and the un­der­valu­ing of ed­u­ca­tion, ter­tiary in par­tic­u­lar, con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor chal­lenge across the field.

“And we can’t ig­nore ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence, that’s a big chal­lenge for every sin­gle pro­fes­sion.”

With a 15-to-one staff ra­tio, ac­cord­ing to the UWI web­site, Prof An­toine shared her meth­ods of over­see­ing and em­pow­er­ing the acad­e­mia and ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Grow­ing up my fam­i­ly would jest that the rea­son why I was so in­de­pen­dent was be­cause I was an ‘in­de­pen­dence ba­by’. The im­pulse to get things done all on my own, I have learnt to con­trol over the years. It took me a long time; it was a hard les­son but an im­por­tant one to be a good leader.

“Work­shops and be­ing open to di­a­logue have had a fruit­ful im­pact and I can­not un­der­score the val­ue of be­ing in­clu­sive.”

Prof An­toine goes against so­ci­etal norms when speak­ing about em­ploy­ees.

“Skill, qual­i­ty, and mer­it are what I val­ue the most with em­ploy­ees, not your per­son­al­i­ty. My phi­los­o­phy is to sur­round my­self with com­pe­tent peo­ple. You don’t have to like me, just be good at your tasks. Once you have the skills, the tal­ent, the ideas, that’s all that is need­ed.

“In ad­di­tion to be­ing in­clu­sive, lis­ten­ing to oth­ers, and show­ing re­spect, I have learnt how im­por­tant build­ing trust and com­mu­ni­ca­tion are. It’s how you build ideas for change.”

A dis­tin­guished life and ca­reer, she is proud of sev­er­al paths tak­en.

“My aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ment and the abil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence ... I have been able to use my le­gal re­search and ad­vo­ca­cy to cre­ate change in very tan­gi­ble ways. The uni­ver­si­ty has as­sist­ed. Some of the laws in labour, I draft­ed or spear­head­ed it in the re­gion.

“I get a qui­et sat­is­fac­tion through the work I have done.”

Her work has al­lowed her to trav­el be­yond our shore to ac­com­plish what she de­scribed as “in­ter­est­ing things”.

These in­ter­est­ing things in­clud­ed work­ing with Trayvon Mar­tin’s par­ents, even be­fore Black Lives Mat­ter came to the fore, tak­ing them to hear­ings and tour­ing Flori­da. Her ap­point­ment as rap­por­teur for Per­sons of African De­scent, Against Dis­crim­i­na­tion, and for In­dige­nous Peo­ple has al­so been sig­nif­i­cant and re­ward­ing.

“I led a mis­sion to Dom Re­pub­lic, Latin Amer­i­ca on dis­crim­i­na­tion against in­dige­nous peo­ple, wa­ter se­cu­ri­ty, and ex­trac­tive in­dus­tries. This was very re­ward­ing, a high point in my ca­reer.

“An­oth­er high­light for me was hold­ing the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent of In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion­er of Hu­man Rights, the on­ly Trinida­di­an so far,” she said.

“And, on a less­er scale, be­com­ing a pro­fes­sor in 2004 at a young age,” she added.

She shared her great­est ac­com­plish­ments out of the of­fice–her train­ing as a clas­si­cal singer and the gar­den in St Lu­cia that she shares with her hus­band of 23 years.

Prof An­toine de­fines suc­cess as liv­ing life one day at a time and be­ing use­ful in this world.

But who in­spires such an in­spi­ra­tional woman?

“I like strong women. I ad­mire Mer­lene Ottey, Joan of Ark, those au­thors long ago who had to pre­tend to be men, I ad­mire that. Women who are tough, re­silient, fo­cused, de­ter­mined and those who go against the odds, un­ortho­dox.”

The mis­takes made over the years and learn­ing to com­mu­ni­cate have been vi­tal life lessons, she ac­knowl­edged.

“I am very di­rect, and out­spo­ken, al­ways have been, al­ways will be and, of course, that has its own prob­lems,” she shared.

“Not un­der­stand­ing how im­por­tant it is to com­mu­ni­cate and build re­la­tion­ships, how to be di­rect, hon­est, out­spo­ken with­out hurt­ing some­one. Al­most every­thing ‘bad’ that has hap­pened in my life, look­ing back I can say it was a mis­un­der­stand­ing of a sort. They have tend­ed to right them­selves. I have im­proved but I still have ways to go.”

What ad­vice would she give to her 25-year-old self?

“Have pa­tience. Now I am a lot more mea­sured, an­oth­er trait I had to teach my­self.”

With such a suc­cess­ful and full life be­hind her, Prof An­toine de­fined hap­pi­ness in one sen­tence:

“A sense of pur­pose with your loved ones around you; they go hand in hand,” adding, “Mon­ey for UWI will make me very hap­py.”

Prof An­toine said, “I had adopt­ed for many years my school’s (St Joseph’s Con­vent, St Joseph) mot­to, Per­se­ver­ance Wins. As I have got­ten old­er, my words to live by comes in the form of a hymn.”

The lyrics of, If I Can Help Some­body, com­posed by Al­ma Irene Thomp­son in 1912, res­onate with Pof An­toine and they are words she strives to live by every day.

Her stu­dents and peers, lo­cal­ly, re­gion­al­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, would agree that she has.

Prof An­toine’s ac­com­plish­ments

• In 1989, tem­po­rary lec­tur­er in the Fac­ul­ty of Law, Cave Hill

• 2002 in­au­gur­al di­rec­tor, ini­tia­tor of the Mas­ter of Law pro­gramme

• 2004 one of the youngest UWI lec­tur­ers to be ap­point­ed pro­fes­sor

• The first sit­ting Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Law, St Au­gus­tine, serv­ing two terms.

• UWI alum­na, a Cam­bridge Pe­ga­sus Fel­low, Ox­ford and Com­mon­wealth Schol­ar, Prof An­toine holds a doc­tor­ate from Ox­ford Uni­ver­si­ty in Off­shore Fi­nan­cial

• 2011 com­mis­sion­er at the In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights, Wash­ing­ton

• 2014, pres­i­dent, In­ter-Amer­i­can Com­mis­sion on Hu­man Rights, Wash­ing­ton–the first per­son from T&T

• 2021, Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor, Grad­u­ate Stud­ies and Re­search

• 2021, the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice named her a Pi­o­neer­ing Caribbean Women Em­i­nent Ju­rist Awardee

• Pres­i­dent of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go

• Mem­ber of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee,

Hon­orary Fel­low and the on­ly Caribbean per­son of the

In­ter­na­tion­al So­ci­ety for Trust Prac­ti­tion­ers (STEP)

• Trustee of the Lon­don IPPF Board.

• On Au­gust 1, 2022, she was named Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor and Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal Des­ig­nate for The UWI St Au­gus­tine to serve for five years

• In­tro­duced the Makan­dal Daa­ga Schol­ar­ship

• Pub­li­ca­tion out­put with over 17 books, texts and pub­lished man­u­scripts, more than 18 book chap­ters and 45 se­lect­ed ar­ti­cles.