Those who know even a little about the career of recently appointed Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana Professor Ivelaw Griffith, may well be persuaded that he is what one might call ‘the right fit’ for the job as Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana. Nor is it a matter of hanging any unreasonable burdens of expectation around the Vice Chancellor’s neck so early into his tenure.
For a start his curriculum vitae suggests that his experience in the world of academia includes, among other things, a considerable understanding of the administration of universities in developed as well as developing countries. No less pertinent is the fact that Professor Griffith is a Guyanese, his sojourn abroad notwithstanding, and has been in touch with the socio-political currents of the country of his birth so that he possesses more than a passing insight into the currents and challenges that apply at UG.
He speaks about his perceived mission with the unfussiness of a man who understands not just the magnitude of the task but the dispositional posture that he must assume if he is to get the job done. In his recent one-on-one informal exchange with the Stabroek Business he articulated some of his critical maxims: like building a team at Turkeyen that is seized of his mission and has bought into it; building strong and reliable relationships of trust with a student body to which UG has not always been kind; dissolving what may have been a culture created over the years to the effect that free or even inexpensive university education is some sort of inherent right; marketing UG through the proliferation of memorabilia and mementos associated with university campuses across the world and working towards the delivery of a well-resourced UG, with government, the private sector and Guyanese seeking higher education paying their own respective fair shares. He believes, he says, that that is as it should be.
As stated earlier in this editorial, without seeking to saddle Professor Griffith with the burden of exalted expectations associated with salvaging an institution that has been in a condition of decline for some time, it has to be said that he has a tough job ahead of him, so to speak, and he does not appear to be under any illusions about this. What has caught this newspaper’s eye—apart from the Vice Chancellor’s seeming grasp of the minutiae that comprises the sum total of his mission—is his clear identification of the critical partnerships that will be necessary if he is to succeed. The one that most catches the attention of the Stabroek Business is the envisaged relationship with the private sector which already appears to be underway. It is a relationship which not only emulates the pattern among universities the world over but one which fits in neatly with the local circumstance of scarce skills in the various critical sectors that are necessary for private sector development. Going forward, the extent of the private sector’s commitment to the creation of skills necessary to meet the demands of the various sectors will be measured in the extent to which it responds to Professor Griffith’s clearly stated intention to embrace the private sector as a key partner in the development of the university.
The idea of a School of Business at UG, for example, will, presumably, be shaped in large measure, by the perceived needs of the local business sector and will depend on the various forms of support which business houses can lend to the effort. That will, hopefully, begin to provide a response to what influential business executives have told this newspaper is the biggest single challenge confronting the private sector, a shortage of skills.
Here, curriculum considerations are also likely to seek to respond to the needs of a growing small business sector in which there appears to be a marked disparity between persons desirous making modest sorties into the world of business and those possessing the requisite skills and qualifications to do so. Here, it is a matter of UG being directly relevant to an important societal need. What Vice Chancellor Griffith—at least based on his discourse with the Stabroek Business—clearly does not overlook, is the responsibility of reaching out to audiences beyond the immediate university community, through the established media channels and through those, formal and informal, which he says he intends to press into service.
A greater openness in the relationship between the university and the society as a whole is what he appears to envisage going forward. It is an approach that is, to say the least, encouraging.
