Dr. Mark Kirton is livid, confused and wants to know what’s going on

Aug 29, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Dr. Mark Kirton and I go back more than forty-five years. We entered UG as freshmen at the same time. I taught at UG for 26 years, during which he was Head of my Department and Dean of my faculty. Mark was one of the best colleagues I worked with at UG. Of course, we remained friends for all those decades; not that we never had our confrontations. By now all, without exception, who know me, have their thoughts of me being crazy and just wanting to argue and fight. That is a description I don’t think I can honestly reject.
I don’t see Mark often since he returned to Guyana from lecturing at UWI. I have seen him twice since he is back – at the brunch sponsored by the Burnham Foundation headed by Vincent Alexander, and at the birth night bash of Bert Wilkinson.
I was shopping in the supermarket yesterday when I ran into Mark. He looked at me with a face that led me to believe he has all that troubles of the world on his shoulders. He said, “You heard what the Vice Chancellor (VC) announced yesterday?” I told him I didn’t. He was referring to the VC’s welcoming remarks to the school of 2018. Mark looked at me with disgust saying, “Freddie, how can UG offer three honorary doctorates when UG never offered even one doctoral programme in its entire existence; that is unheard of and unthinkable.”
I briefly said that in its entire existence, it has hardly offered Masters programmes, much less doctoral degrees. Then Mark said, “Freddie, I’m writing a letter to the newspaper on this one, I mean it.” With a smile, I said; “would you like me to report this conversation in my column tomorrow?” He agreed and before he exited the supermarket, while still reeling from the VC’s announcement, I said; “are you sure I can write on this?” His parting words were, “Go on; mention what I told you.” So here it is; I am publishing his frustration.
Mark Kirton was very upset and he has a personality that doesn’t betray anger or irascibility. I have functioned with Mark for 4 years as contemporary students and 26 years as contemporary lecturers at UG, and I have never seen such frustration in him. I remember the time when he was appointed acting Vice Chancellor, replacing Dr. James Rose.
President Jagdeo and the then-Education Minister, Henry Jeffrey, were hopping mad and ordered the reinstatement of Rose. I went to Mark and suggested that we test the issue in court and organize protest action. Without betraying any emotions, he simply said he wasn’t interested. I acted on my own in asking the court to reinstate Mark. Justice Patterson gave a Nisi order. But even then, Mark was simply not interested in a fight. UG refused to accept Justice Patterson’s ruling based on the legal advice they got, and soon after Mark Kirton left for UWI in Trinidad. Since then, there has never been any fallout between Jeffrey and Mark. They were both chatting away at Bert Wilkinson’s birthday celebration.
I have spent the greater part of my adult life in academia and I have never heard of a university that only offers programmes at the first degree level conferring honorary doctorates. Mark and I may be wrong, and I guess we will have to wait for the response of the VC of UG, Professor Ivelaw Griffith. But there is another argument that could be advanced. This is my opinion –there is a lot of pomp, splendour and ostentation at UG, but there is no deep transformation and inviting innovation.
I spoke to the son of one of the leading sports journalists in Guyana. He just completed a Bachelor’s in Engineering at UG. I asked him if the labs in the technology faculty are still bare. He said when he went in there in 2014, they were bare, and for the four years he spent there, he saw no visible changes. This has to confuse any sane person. UG continues to have all types of ceremonies and fancy things, but in an age of high technology, the labs in that area are still primitive.
Why do you want to have these types of pomp and splendour rather than concentrate on expanding the resources of the University? By the way, I never wrote this before. Literally, countless of persons have asked me why, after the change of government, I didn’t go back to UG. The truth is none of the kings and queens in the APNU+AFC asked me, and I didn’t ask them either.

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Dr. Mark Kirton is livid, confused and wants to know what’s going on

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