Something about academic partnerships between great universities drives them to have big dreams.
That’s precisely what is happening with the University of the West Indies, now led by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, the Vice Chancellor, and the State University of New York with nearly 450 000 students. While the UWI is the Caribbean’s leading educational institution, SUNY is America’s largest comprehensive system of higher education.
“SUNY and the UWI have been collaborating for many, many years on research projects and student exchanges,” explained Sir Hilary, a Bajan scholar who until recently was Principal of the UWI Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.
“We have a highly developed programme on chronic disease research, hypertension research and diabetes research. We also have a highly developed programme on marine biology, climate change, the threat to small islands and rising global tide levels. We have said to our colleagues at SUNY has the time not come for us to partner at a higher level of conception to create and grow a university institution in New York that is jointly owned and jointly managed by SUNY and the UWI?”
SUNY’s answer was an emphatic “yes,” which was articulated by Carl McCall, chairman of SUNY’s board of trustees, and by Dr Nancy Zimpher, SUNY’s Chancellor.
“It’s a great collaborative effort, said McCall, a former Comptroller of the New York State.
“This is truly a partnership. You know how much we get done because we know how to work effectively together,” said Dr Zimpher at a reception given by SUNY at its Manhattan Global Centre in honour of Sir Hilary.
“We want you at the University of the West Indies to consider the Centre a home-away-
from home.”
With New York’s burgeoning Caribbean community that comprises people from the English, Creole, Dutch, French and Spanish-speaking islands, coastal states and dependent territories numbering in the millions, said Sir Hilary, the UWI and SUNY were moving towards the creation of an UWI academic presence.
“The challenge for us at the UWI as an academic institution is how can our university serve the ‘greater Caribbean’ as I call it, especially here in New York,” said the Vice Chancellor, a leading scholar, prolific author and economic historian.
“We have had a memorandum of understanding with SUNY for many years and we would like to move this research-student-exchange level of collaboration to a higher level of institution building.
“It would let SUNY and the UWI build an institution in New York that can deal with the aspirations, desires, the ambitions of this massive Caribbean community that does not have the kind of academic representation it desires,” said the Bajan scholar.
“There are West Indians in New York who wish to have a learning environment for themselves, their children and to have a university representation of their culture, of their political thinking. We need to have a Caribbean university in New York.”
Tony Best is the Nation’s North America correspondent. [email protected]
