Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
The UG Vice-Chancellor, Ivelaw Griffith and I were student-contemporaries but we never became friends. My friends included the current Registrar of UG, Nigel Gravesande. A diminutive fellow, Nigel rode to UG on what was known at the time as Velosolex, a cross between a bicycle and a motor-cycle. Almost a hundred percent of Guyanese under thirty years would not know what a Velosolex is.
Carl Singh, the current Chancellor of the Judiciary and I became very close buddies during our student days. I never mentioned our friendship until now because I didn’t want it to jeopardize his judgeship, Chief Justice tenure or his chancellorship. Of course I never had reason to appear in front of him or had a case in which he presided over. Dr. Mark Kirton and I were good friends. We still are. Back then his nickname was “Ripper.” Later on he acquired another nickname, “Boogaloo.” If you want to know why Mark Kirton is called Boogoloo” you have to promise me you would not tell another soul on Planet Earth.
I just knew Ivelaw Griffith by seeing him on campus. He belonged to the Faculty of Social Sciences and I was in the Arts Faculty majoring in history. Ivelaw Griffith has gone a far way since our days as students at UG. He is now the current Vice-Chancellor, a position he took up in February this year. I wish him well. I hope he does manage to give UG the future it deserves. One would like to think he has the support of the Government, the Guyanese people and the University itself. But I believe there are some early mistakes that need urgent correcting.
I was interviewed by the Kaieteur News and the Guyana Chronicle on two developments that the Vice Chancellor (VC) was in the middle of. First was his leadership of a trip to the US in which fourteen officials accompanied him. The travel was to raise funds from interactions with the Guyana diaspora. The Chronicle reported that the venture spent more money than the amount that was raised. Secondly, I was asked for my comments on the new leadership structure.
In both interviews, I emphasised the point that on two fronts, I believe the VC acted in good faith. But certain management strategies that should have informed his decisions were missing. First, why would UG take 14 officials to raise funds from the Guyana diaspora? That is a huge number to house in hotels, provide transport for, pay per diem and feed. If the Chronicle is correct, then such an arrangement had to bring in less than it cost.
How much did they expect to receive from the diaspora? The Chronicle puts it as $30, 000 American. That is a meager amount in the context of UG’s needs. But then again, of the sections that make up the CARICOM diaspora, Guyana has the weakest in financial terms when compared to Jamaica and Trinidad. On the new management structure, it is my opinion that this is a system that is seriously top-heavy and should be changed immediately.
My last year at UG was the very end of 2011. And at that time, the student population was getting smaller from the 5000 it was. The staff, both academic and non-academic stood at just about 500. I don’t believe since 2011, the student population has returned to the figure of 5000. But even so that still makes UG one of the smallest universities in the entire world.
Why then would such a small university have the following; a Vice-Chancellor and three Deputy Vice-Chancellors; Officer for Strategic Initiatives; Chief of Staff in the Office of the Vice-Chancellor; Registrar, Deputy Registrar; four Assistant Registrars? In addition to this, each Faculty has its own Dean and Deputy Dean; then there is the Committee of Deans. The question that needs to be asked is what volume of work UG endures on a daily basis to have such a large administrative structure?
When I made these points to my interviewers, I was told that the VC made these changes based on the Hamilton Report. But one does not have to accept the report in its totality. One has to embrace the sections of the Report that are relevant to UG’s functions and structure. I appeared before the Hamilton Inquiry in my capacity as Deputy Chairman of the UG Workers’ Union and I did urge a total transformation of the nature of the Council of the university which the Hamilton Report accepted and recommended. Where is this transformation? I wish Professor Griffith good things during his tenure.
Please share this to every Guyanese including your house cats.
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