New faculty for UWI Cave Hill Campus
The rich diversity of this region’s culture is being given due respect in the academic arena with the creation of a Faculty of Caribbean Creative Arts and Culture at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies.
Making this disclosure yesterday at the 3Ws Pavilion, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal, Professor Eudine Barriteau, told The Barbados Advocate that finances have already been approved for the new faculty, and with input now being garnered from all departments, the intention was to have it opened for the September 2019 academic year.
“One of the region’s exceptional contributions to creativity and knowledge is our distinctive Caribbean culture in music, in dance, in film, carnivals and festivals, religious systems and practices, and the fine arts. As Caribbean people we live our culture. Now the UWI must treat it with full respect and create a faculty structure that recognises the maturity, intellectual marketability and scholarly weight in cultural studies,” she said earlier during a ceremony revealing new curricula for the upcoming year.
“We must establish a faculty to attract international students to come to Barbados and the Caribbean to study, but more importantly, to enable Barbadian and Caribbean people to study and gain valuable skills and hone their talent in the visual and performance arts and cultural industries. We already have the scholars, the artistes, experts and practitioners, but most of all we have a rich and varied intellectual and experiential field of study that would mark Caribbean culture and creative arts as unique in the world.
“Barbados is no exception with contributions from world-renowned scholars, performance artistes such as Karl Broodhagen, George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite, Nicholas Brancker, Anthony ‘Gabby’ Carter, Rihanna and so many others. When this is established, prospective students from across the region and internationally will come to the campus and Barbados for skills and knowledge in an area distinctively Caribbean,” Barriteau added. (JMB)