Mem­bers of the Fac­ul­ty of Bio­sciences, Agri­cul­ture, and Food Tech­nol­o­gy (BAFT) at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go are up­set af­ter a new lead­er­ship struc­ture was an­nounced.

How­ev­er, fac­ul­ty mem­bers claimed it was im­posed with­out con­sul­ta­tion or trans­paren­cy. The changes were re­vealed dur­ing a Sep­tem­ber 20th meet­ing con­vened by the Vice Pres­i­dent of Re­search and Aca­d­e­m­ic Sup­port Ad­min­is­tra­tion (VPRASA). Fac­ul­ty mem­bers were in­formed that the new struc­ture, de­scribed as an in­ter­im mea­sure to be re-eval­u­at­ed af­ter one year, had al­ready been ap­proved by the Uni­ver­si­ty’s Board, leav­ing them with no op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­put.

At the meet­ing, it was an­nounced that Pro­fes­sor Pu­ran Bridge­mo­han would serve as Pro­gramme Leader (Tit­u­lar Head), while Dr Mar­cus Ramd­war, Pro­fes­sor Mar­lon Knights, and Dr An­dell Ed­wards would as­sume roles as Dis­ci­pline Lead­ers for Aca­d­e­m­ic Ad­min­is­tra­tion, In­dus­try Link­ages and Projects, and Farm Op­er­a­tions, re­spec­tive­ly. A Farm Com­mer­cial­iza­tion Com­mit­tee was al­so es­tab­lished, com­pris­ing Board mem­bers with ex­per­tise in agri­cul­ture, busi­ness, and law, as well as fac­ul­ty staff. This com­mit­tee, chaired by Dr John Al­leyne, who al­so serves as an ad­vi­sor to the Prime Min­is­ter on Agri­cul­ture, will work with ex­ist­ing in­ter­nal com­mit­tees to spear­head projects and ini­tia­tives.

Fac­ul­ty mem­bers, who asked not to be named, raised con­cerns over the process, say­ing the changes de­vi­ate from the fac­ul­ty’s long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic de­ci­sion-mak­ing, where Pro­gramme Lead­ers were elect­ed by their peers.

“This is a bla­tant dis­re­gard for shared gov­er­nance and trans­paren­cy,” said one fac­ul­ty mem­ber, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty. “We were not even in­formed be­fore the Board made its de­ci­sion. It feels like our voic­es no longer mat­ter.”

The in­tro­duc­tion of the Tit­u­lar Head po­si­tion has al­so drawn crit­i­cism from mem­bers with some say­ing they are un­clear about its spe­cif­ic re­spon­si­bil­i­ties or how it will con­tribute to the fac­ul­ty’s op­er­a­tions. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the new­ly es­tab­lished Farm Com­mer­cial­iza­tion Com­mit­tee and the ex­ist­ing in­ter­nal Farm Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee re­mains am­bigu­ous, as staff mem­bers ques­tioned the po­ten­tial over­lap or re­dun­dan­cy.

In re­sponse to these con­cerns, UTT Gov­er­nor, Pro­fes­sor Clement Im­bert, de­fend­ed the re­struc­tur­ing process, stat­ing, “Aca­d­e­m­ic ad­min­is­tra­tive po­si­tions have a time lim­it, so the Pro­gramme Lead­er­ship was due for a change, and the most se­nior per­son in line was cho­sen as is the norm. If there is more than one per­son of the same rank, the po­si­tion is ad­ver­tised.” He al­so clar­i­fied the pur­pose of the Farm Com­mer­cial­iza­tion Com­mit­tee, em­pha­siz­ing its mem­ber­ship from the Board and Fac­ul­ty and its aim to com­ple­ment in­ter­nal com­mit­tees. “I don’t know what trans­paren­cy con­cerns you are re­fer­ring to,” Im­bert added. “As far as I know, there are no is­sues with in­clu­sion.”