Jesse Ramdeo

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

For grad­u­ates, the class of 2020 has be­come the class of COVID-19, and while the pan­dem­ic has up­root­ed tra­di­tion­al grad­u­a­tion cer­e­monies, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St Au­gus­tine cam­pus re-cre­at­ed the mile­stone ex­pe­ri­ence vir­tu­al­ly.

The pan­dem­ic snuffed away a defin­ing mo­ment in these grad­uands lives, a rite of pas­sage they have wait­ed for, for years.

Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences Class Vale­dic­to­ri­an, Chikara Mitchell de­liv­ered a poignant and rel­e­vant mes­sage that rang true for grad­uands dur­ing her speech which was broad­cast on Mon­day.

“Change is the on­ly con­stant, it is in­evitable, it is how­ev­er how we view these changes and adapt to them that im­pacts and charts our fu­ture.”

Ac­cord­ing to Mitchell, de­spite be­ing robbed of the op­por­tu­ni­ty to cross the stage and tick off a ma­jor aca­d­e­m­ic ac­com­plish­ment, her class­mates’ en­deav­ours could not be di­min­ished be­cause of their col­lec­tive spir­it.

“May we charge our lives with in­tegri­ty. Re­cent­ly I have wit­nessed great adapt­abil­i­ty from you my fel­low grad­uands in ad­just­ing to re­cent changes. The gen­uine love and sup­port poured from the com­mu­ni­ty to oth­ers showed me that don’t on­ly care for their own suc­cess. It may seem triv­ial but I smile with every post on so­cial me­dia in their white and blue.”

The UWI’s Chan­cel­lor Robert Bermudez praised the grad­u­at­ing class and rec­og­nized their role in com­bat­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“You will be need­ed in the days and months ahead as the re­gion builds its new re­al­i­ty. Our col­lec­tive ca­pac­i­ty to re­spond to glob­al chal­lenges be­gin with knowl­edge, cre­ativ­i­ty and in­no­va­tion. You are now go­ing to be part of that process and I urge you to be­come agents of change.”

Mean­while, UWI’s Vice-Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les said the grad­u­at­ing class had been test­ed not on­ly by their pro­fes­sors but by a pan­dem­ic and man­aged to rise above all cir­cum­stances by be­ing re­silient and re­source­ful, he al­so con­grat­u­lat­ed the ad­min­is­tra­tion. Beck­les not­ed that Times High­er Ed­u­ca­tion had giv­en the UWI a triple first glob­al rank­ing, top­ping over 150 uni­ver­si­ties in the re­gion.

“We have been ranked in the top one per cent of the finest uni­ver­si­ties in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean from a field of over five thou­sand uni­ver­si­ties and we have been ranked in the top one per cent of the finest uni­ver­si­ties in the world with­in our age co­hort.”