Vice Chancellor outlines 20-year vision for UG

Apr 01, 2019 News

---

 

Professor Ivelaw Griffith, the tenth Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana said he will continue to pursue his vision of bringing the University of Guyana (UG) on the same level as those in the Caribbean and North America.
Professor Griffith shared this during a recent conversation with Terrence Blackman, Dean School of Science, Health & Technology Medgar Evers College, City University of New York. The focus of the talk was “What does the University of Guyana looks like 20 years from now,” during which he outlined where he wants to see the university in the next two decades.
According to Professor Griffith, “At the end of the 20 years, long after I am gone, I would like to see a University of Guyana that is characterized by these things. UG must be the place of first choice for Guyanese who want to invest in their tertiary education.
“We have seven faculties and a school of business. We now have 130 different programmes. Guyana should be the place where people feel so confident about their credibility of what (is being offered) that they do not use as their first choice the off shore schools.”

The academic said that on perusing the website of the National Accreditation Council 17 different offshore schools are listed. In this regard, he pointed out that UG needs to strengthen what it does and how it does it so that it can be that place of first choice.
“But a university in a nation like Guyana cannot limit itself only to teaching, it has to be filtered around research. We need to be the place around which research revolves. We have the basis for tropical medicine (but) we are not in that dream as yet. The second thing I would like to see the university become is a beacon for research, not only by the lecturers and professors, but by the students.”
Lastly, he said that over the years UG has fallen by the wayside and needs to get back as being the driving force behind learning in the region. Responding to a question posed by Blackman, Professor Griffith said that the dreaming and doings he has introduced to the university is nothing outside of what academics do.
“It is largely dreaming and doing what is not within the portfolio of knowledge in Guyana. Some people are thinking that I am creating these crazy ideas. It’s just that I am trying to normalize within Guyana what is normal in most universities in the Caribbean and North America.
“Part of the dreaming and doing is helping people to understand that there is a paradigm shift. And in the paradigm shift, you have to be willing to take risks to go to places you have not gone before. And that has not always been appreciated.”
According to him, the trajectory that Guyana is on requires the university to have some big dreams and doings. He went on to say, “Last year we had the first entrepreneurship conference. I said something there that I did not realize impacted so many young folks until a couple weeks ago.”
He said that he was later contacted by a young graduate whom he described as a leading woman in entrepreneurship in terms of trying to get young people to save and to manage their monies, who he said thanked him for the presentation he made.
“She later sent me a text and said ‘Vice Chancellor, I want to thank you for what you said last year July. And I said what? She said: ‘you told us to have big hairy audacious goals. And I decided to set a goal that I want to educate 11,000 young people…”
According to Professor Griffith, this woman, the president of her own company, is a dynamic entrepreneur. He pointed out that he has been stressing the need to have big goals both off and on campus. The academic is of the view that big goals will result in big investments, which will in turn generate monies for the government.
“We have to bring in the government and ask them for more. We also have to bring in the business community and ask them to invest. We have to reach out to our alumni and friends and ask them how they can give back,” Professor Griffith noted.
The University of Guyana was established in April 1963 and began its operations in October of the same year with a batch of 164 students in temporary premises loaned from Queen’s College in Georgetown.
It offers certificate, diploma, associate degree, undergraduate degree, graduate (post-graduate) degree, and professional degree programmes. These programmes are delivered through seven Faculties and one School, each of which is headed by a Dean.
These include the faculty Agriculture and Forestry; Earth and Environmental Studies; Education and Humanities; Engineering and Technology; Health Sciences; Natural Sciences; and Social Sciences, and the school of Entrepreneurship and Business Innovation.
The institution also offers the opportunity for student engagement in debating, sports, and cultural, religious and professional activities. In 2017, the university recorded an enrollment of some 8,000 students.
More than 20,000 students have graduated and have gone on to successful careers locally, regionally and internationally in all professional fields of endeavour. The university is a major contributor to the public and private sectors and to the national economy.

---

---