Sir Hilary: UWI Faculty of Sport to open in 2017

THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES is set to establish the Faculty of Sport at the start of the next academic year, announced Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Hilary Beckles at the conclusion of the first full day 2016 Caribbean Sport Conference at the Cave Hill Campus yesterday.

 

Sir Hilary had announced in April the plans to establish the new Faculty when he was speaking at the inaugural UWI Vice-Chancellor’s Sports Awards ceremony held at the St Augustine Campus in Trinidad.

 

Yesterday at the Usain Bolt Complex, Sir Hilary told those on hand that the Faculty will come on stream in 2017 and will be the first since the Faculty of Law was introduced in 1970.

 

Beckles said that all four campuses will offer training ranging from certificate to masters’ programmes in the pedagogy of sport.

 

As he spoke about a conversation which the UWI had with Usain Bolt as well as honouring and respecting some of the great athletes before him such as Sir Frank Worrell, Sir Hilary said that “To show respect to his achievement and the Jamaican achievement, so we have agreed that come January will launch the Faculty of Sport at the UWI.

 

He noted that no other civilisation has produced as many sportsmen and sportswomen per capita as has the Caribbean “We believe that this Caribbean world is entitled to a Faculty of Sport because this is one of our greatest cultural achievements and the University time has come to impose on this culture and excellence and achieve a faculty construct to ensure that we research, we discuss, we narrate, film, study medicine, we look at government policy, every aspect of this we will not leave to chance.”

 

In his announcement yesterday, Sir Hilary made note of the fall of the West Indies great legacy and despite his book written in 1998 which spoke of where West Indies Cricket was going in the age of Globalisation no policy or construct was put in place to try to prevent such things from happening.

 

When the West Indies lost at Sabina Park, Sir Hilary said he was asked to write such a book as they did not believe it was an accident but it was a process and it must be arrested.

 

Sir Hilary said that after writing the book he had invitations from Australia, England and India to discuss what was happening but he has never had an invitation from the West Indies.

 

So as they look to secure the Legacy of the Caribbean one way is the Faculty of Sport.