Modernisation of the UG Library should be our top priority

Feb 22, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
I was delighted when Dr Compton Bourne was appointed Chancellor of UG (President Jagdeo’s preference) as well as Professor Carrington as Vice-Chancellor, (again, President Jagdeo’s  preference), both appointments based on complete merit, rather than party politics.
Bourne is an internationally respected banker and civil servant, a man of exemplary manners and charm, not to mention his erudition and diplomatic and fundraising skills. When President Jagdeo asked, informally, my opinion on Dr Bourne, I said right away he’d be a valued asset to Guyana.
As to Carrington, he was a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO for four years, 1993-1997, (including me and the great, late Rex Nettleford), and he was so respected by the international community, that many members of UNESCO wanted to appoint him President of the UNESCO General Conference. He withdrew his candidature with great dignity, so as to allow another Candidate to go forward.
My four-year collaboration with Carrington on the UNESCO Executive Board deepened my respect for him as a scholar and diplomat. Bourne and Carrington are truly CARICOM people, and we should give thanks for their work to strengthen UG.
UG is underfunded, but in the current international climate, universities worldwide, even in the developed world, are undergoing severe cut-backs. London Metropolitan University has decimated their staff, to stave off complete closure. My own University of Warwick, one of the UK’s top academies, has instituted a series of severe cuts to various Departments. Many British Universities are actually facing the prospect of severe shrinking, if not outright closure. It is the same all over Europe and North and Latin America.
UG academics quite rightly bemoan the absence of funding for research and publications. However, this is a universal situation, and academics are expected to use their 20 weeks paid holidays from teaching to conduct research, on their own salaries (which are considerably higher than the national average).
It is so much cheaper, because of the free availability of books and articles on the web, to conduct research in the Humanities and Social Studies. I do not want to be drawn into the affair of my acquaintance, Freddie Kissoon, except to say I’m genuinely perplexed why the UG administrators repeatedly renewed his contract though he was underperforming in the basic duties of an academic: research and publications.
I know of many UG academics who have published substantial scholarship in monographs and peer-reviewed journals (Al Creighton, David Chanderbali, Marlene Cox, Prem Misir, etc etc). Kissoon and his supporters should seek advice from such UG scholars as to how to increase their scholarly research and publications profile, and thereby justify receiving comfortable salaries paid by taxpayers (canecutters, bauxite miners, fishermen etc). As I have said elsewhere, to receive a salary as an academic, and not fulfil the research and publications duty of an academic, is to defraud the taxpayers of Guyana.
Finally, in all the furore about providing more taxpayers’ resources to UG, there was no mention of the need to enhance the stock of the UG Library, which is the core of the institution of learning. Complainers mentioned a rickety bridge, a leaking roof, stray dogs on campus, etc etc., but neglected lobbying for improvements to the UG Library.
This should be sufficient indictment to their lack of understanding of the role of the Library in preparing Guyanese for a learned and scholarly future. For what it’s worth, I think the modernisation of the UG Library should be our top priority, and I for one (and many of my colleagues) would be happy to donate computers and several hundreds of texts to the institution.
Professor David Dabydeen
Yesu Persaud Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick, England