Tag Archives: UWI

Over the past few weeks, Kitchener’s 1961 calypso Take yuh meat out of meh rice kept ringing in my ears. The calypso tells an amusing story about two hungry people, one a Bajan and the other a Trinidadian, who concocted a plan to satisfy their hunger. “A Bajan and a …

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to speak with two truly inspiring members of the Cocoa Research Centre (CRC) at The UWI: Professor Pathmanathan Umaharan, its head, and Dr Darin Sukha, its food technologist. I met them 16 years ago, when I started working at the university as …

On Thursday, the Express reported on a surprising conflict at the St Augustine campus of The University of the West Indies. It seems the Institute of International Relations had arranged a virtual seminar, Unravelling the complexities of peace in the Middle East: An Israeli perspective, to be delivered by the …

Those of you who took god out your thoughts and were following my rants over the years know I have been saying the word “emancipation” actually means transfer ownership. And that puts into clearer perspective what dem snakes and soucouyants I was taught to celebrate as humanitarians and liberators were …

There is an exquisite Jamaican saying: “When dog have money, him buy cheese.” That is most applicable to our national spending on tertiary education. The expression means we recklessly purchase unnecessary items when we get excess funds. Hosein R and Tewarie B (2007) saw this recklessness concerning our tertiary education …

Last week, the incumbent Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, pronounced that The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has fallen from its scientific research mission. At the time, he was celebrating The University of The West Indies’ 75th and 70th anniversary of its Seismic Research Centre (SRC) (Express, June …

It is one of those rare occasions when every praise song being sung is true. Not one word has been misspent—generous, gentle, erudite, kind, gracious, pioneering—it is easy to endorse them sincerely. Since his passing, Gordon Rohlehr has invoked the kind of gratitude and love that truly befits the colossal …

“[…] What is significant about our [Arima] icons is the fact that in almost every aspect of life the individuals were first in their respective fields.  “[…] I believe it must be incumbent on the Arima Council to lobby for the introduction of the history of Arima to be included …

The most momentous happening of this year is the leaking of an email from the Caricom Private Sector Organisation (CPSO). This event will reverberate beyond the ripples of the teargassing incident at the Queen’s Park Savannah.  The latter reflects the polarisation of our country but the email fiasco highlights the …

My mother got an A in picking cotton and a B in digging yam instead of the Common Entrance Exam. Her grandmother (and primary caregiver) must have thought that that was the better use of her time.  Can’t blame her though; she herself couldn’t write and had a thumbprint on …

The recent utterances of a UWI economist about our economy (‘dire straits’) had me scampering for a Lloyd Best quote: ‘Palpably, we lack the pegs on which to hang ongoing events, and which would allow us to convert arbitrary detail into a systematic pattern, arithmetic into algebra, the specific into …

“[…] I have a dream; a dream in which the University of the West Indies upholds Sir Hilary [Beckles] as the Martin Luther King Jr of the Caribbean. “A dream where his phenomenal contribution to academia, sports and reparation justice for those who endured the dehumanising shackles of slavery and …