The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (The UWI) has part­nered with the Hero Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) to of­fer a new cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme, in Sports Mar­ket­ing.

The an­nounce­ment was made by Deputy Dean in the Uni­ver­si­ty’s Fac­ul­ty of Sport, Aman­da Reifer, on Jan­u­ary 25th, dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny host­ed by The UWI Cave Hill Cam­pus, themed, ‘Com­mit­ment to Crick­et’.

Speak­ing on be­half of Dean, Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh, Deputy Dean Reifer not­ed that the ‘gen­tle­man’s game’ has ad­vanced through acad­e­mies and close col­lab­o­ra­tion with uni­ver­si­ties, and this lat­est as­so­ci­a­tion will help to fur­ther de­vel­op the sport re­gion­al­ly.

“We see The UWI as the part­ner to help pull crick­et from the dol­drums. The in­volve­ment of our acad­e­mies and mem­bers of staff is al­ready tes­ti­mo­ny to this. Our in­volve­ment with the oth­er re­gion­al suc­cess, the CPL, is an­oth­er ex­cit­ing part­ner­ship that ben­e­fits our stu­dents and fac­ul­ty. Get­ting the best of their man­age­ment team with ten years of re­gion­al ex­pe­ri­ence while open­ing our hu­man and fa­cil­i­ty re­sources is a part­ner­ship des­tined for suc­cess,” she said.

Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of Hero CPL, Pe­te Rus­sell, said ap­pli­ca­tions will be opened in the com­ing weeks, and the course will be avail­able from June. He added that the pro­gramme will of­fer stu­dents the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn about the build­ing and de­liv­ery of a world-class sport­ing prod­uct.

“There will be in­put from se­nior CPL staff who will give in­sights in­to mar­ket­ing, brand-build­ing pub­lic re­la­tions, con­tent cre­ation, un­der­stand­ing of the dig­i­tal land­scape, and of course busi­ness man­age­ment. At the end of the course, up to 12 stu­dents will be giv­en the chance to in­tern with the CPL and get a fur­ther un­der­stand­ing of how the league op­er­ates,” Rus­sell said.

Vice-Chan­cel­lor of The UWI, Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les high­light­ed The UWI’s quest to be a glob­al cen­tre of ex­cel­lence for teach­ing and learn­ing, and not­ed that this cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme will add val­ue to West In­dies Crick­et.

“As West In­dies crick­et seeks to re­build its glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness, we hope that in turn, West In­dies Crick­et will now find in our Uni­ver­si­ty, the ex­am­ple of glob­al lead­er­ship,” Vice-Chan­cel­lor Beck­les said.

He added, “This cer­tifi­cate pro­gramme will bring tremen­dous val­ue to West In­dies Crick­et for gen­er­a­tions to come be­cause the grad­u­ates of this pro­gramme will move in­to pro­fes­sion­al po­si­tions where they, in turn, will make space for those who will come there­after.”

Fol­low­ing the event, Cave Hill Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal, Pro­fes­sor Clive Lan­dis, es­cort­ed a small par­ty that in­clud­ed Rus­sell and CEO of the Ra­jasthan Roy­als, Mike Ford­ham, on a tour of the crick­et fa­cil­i­ties on cam­pus, in­clud­ing the re­cent­ly re­fur­bished 3Ws Oval, and the Garfield Sobers In­door Crick­et School, which cur­rent­ly is un­der ren­o­va­tion.

He said the Cam­pus’ de­ci­sion to show­case its crick­et­ing trea­sures is part of an over­all plan to at­tract more in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents to pur­sue pro­grammes in the field of crick­et.

Prin­ci­pal Lan­dis al­so not­ed that the cur­rent strate­gic plan of The UWI aims to lever­age the aca­d­e­m­ic achieve­ments of the Uni­ver­si­ty—that have seen it climb to the top 1.5% of the world’s best uni­ver­si­ties, as ranked by Times High­er Ed­u­ca­tion—to ex­port its ed­u­ca­tion­al prod­ucts to the wider world.

“In the crick­et­ing realm, this can be achieved by at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents in­to our world-class crick­et pro­gramme at the Acad­e­my of Sport, or through the en­rol­ment of in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dents on­line. In this re­spect we are con­vert­ing our Mas­ter’s in Crick­et Stud­ies in­to an on­line course for stu­dents in­ter­est­ed in earn­ing a Mas­ter’s De­gree on­line from an ac­cred­it­ed uni­ver­si­ty, with a unique crick­et­ing pedi­gree”, Prin­ci­pal Lan­dis said.

Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, Prin­ci­pal Lan­dis re­ceived on be­half of the Cam­pus, the gift of a crick­et bat from leg­endary Bar­ba­dos, and West In­dies Bats­man, In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil Hall-of-Famer and UWI Hon­orary De­gree hold­er, the Most Ho­n­ourable Desmond Haynes. The bat was used by Haynes when he played his 100th Test Crick­et match. — (The UWI)