Last week she created history when she became the first woman to be appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Guyana and while she feels sad that it took some 57 years for such an appointment to be made, Professor Paloma Mohamed-Martin says she must now honour the contributions and challenges of the many women who have served the university in acting positions but did not manage to shatter the glass ceiling.
There is no honeymoon period and the new Vice-Chancellor has to hit the ground running, but it is a race that may have been made easier by the fact that she has been heading the university’s Transitional Management Committee (TMC) for the past year.
The needs of Guyana’s leading tertiary institution are many and over the years there have been many tugs of war between the staff and administration. But high on the agenda of the new ‘woman in town’ is the bolstering of security, addressing salaries, completing critical infrastructure projects, refining the finance and human resources systems, and transforming student experiences and services.
Her journey to becoming head of the institution may have begun on the right note as she says that the university’s union, which has had some heated exchanges with past vice-chancellors, was one of the interests groups that lobbied her to enter the search for a new Vice-Chancellor.
“This was because we didn’t have any serious issues since [the] TMC took over,” Mohamed-Martin told Stabroek Weekend in an interview. “Because my position is that, one, there are no material differences in interests between us, two, we address those matters which need addressing as quickly as possible, three, I have open communication and structured communication with them, four, they know I do what I say I am going to do, sometimes it takes a while but I do, and five, I really do care about our UG and they know this.”
She is now on a journey to stabilize UG and to take it through the first steps of its transformation into a high-quality, student-centered, future-facing, research-driven and well-resourced national university. “We have a blueprint to begin to refine and implement,” she says optimistically.
It was over 12 years ago that Mohamed-Martin, who was living overseas, returned to Guyana to assist some broadcasting students who were unable to graduate due to the absence of a lecturer.
“I came for six months to revive the Centre for Communication Studies and then leave,” she recalls. “Then one thing led to another and here I am still…”
‘Must chart the course’
A highly decorated academic, who is a 2015 Anthony Sabga Caribbean Laureate for Excellence in Arts and Letters, Professor Mohamed-Martin says she now feels duty-laden because while being the first always has its privileges it also has its challenges. “One feels that one must chart the course and also be a standard bearer for those to come after,” she adds.
She sees her appointment as being significant to women in academia, reminiscing that it has been a long “tough journey”, one that took an entire year to be completed and for her it was very rigorous.
“The obvious thing then, is that those coming after me and those observing now know that this is possible. They can aspire to this as well. What happens during the tenure is going to articulate the scope of significance…,” she acknowledges.
She believes that if she can manage to model how to do it well and to lay down a decent track for other women to build upon that would be important too. “But I want to say that I am a person who supports the growth and development of all persons regardless of gender, background of any persuasion or difference. I just happen to be a lady.”
Mohamed-Martin is a Professor of Behavior and Communications and also an adjunct Professor of Cultural Diplomatics at Trent University. She was educated at the University of Guyana, Harvard University (HIES), the University of the West Indies St Augustine for her PhD and the Centres for Mental Health and Addictions (CAMH, Toronto) in Canada where she did her post-doctoral work. As an academic, she has supervised scores of graduate research theses, produced over 12 PhDs , produced, and co-produced over 22 films and documentaries. She has also written and edited 11 books, including the noteworthy “Communication, Power and Change in the Caribbean”, and several academic journals.
With all of that under her belt if you are to ask Professor Mohamed-Martin why she chose academia she will tell you, “it chose me”.
Looking back and reflecting on her academic journey, she said it was about fulfilling a need and saving something from dying.
“I guess it’s just the great impact that I found I could make when I came home. Everything has been by almost by serendipity. I never sat down and planned this career,” she says.
Even applying for the position of Vice-Chancellor only came about after she was “asked, pushed” by three important interest groups on campus and internationally to do so. She views it as a way to see the work she started to the end.
“I guess all my life I just serve. I do what is needed when it’s needed and it just seems to work out well, to have its own ethos and independent manifesting power,” says the new Vice-Chancellor, who is also the recipient of three Guyana Prizes for Literature and a Presidential Medal of Service in 2012.
She also received the City of New York Award for Culture in 2013 and was the first Caribbean woman to receive the Caribbean Laureate for Excellence in Arts and Letters in 2015, an accomplishment that was recognised with a National Arrow of Achievement in May 2015
When she returned to Guyana in 2007, she figured she would have just helped the students to graduate and then leave.
“But the needs of the [Communica-tions] Centre were so great, and the students were so wonderful, that really seeing the impact I was making directly was very gratifying. My PhD work is on change and so it has been a journey through UG changing people and things I hope for the better,” she says of her earlier years at the institution.
She never believed that she would been here this long, but she noted that great things began to happen and with this being home where she feels most empowered and inspired and motivated to act, it was a done deal.
For her, “teaching has been the most gratifying thing I have done bar none. I think I am good at nurturing people, and I find it exhilarating to see them blossom and become…,”
Before returning to Guyana, Professor Mohamed-Martin lived and studied in the US and Trinidad and did international consultancies mostly as well as teaching assistantships.
Highest potential
Giving some insight into her background, the new Vice-Chancellor shares that she spent most of her secondary years at Queen’s College (QC) and graduated with O-levels and A-levels.
She wrote common entrance at the age of nine, just after her parents got divorced, which she describes as “a most traumatic and disruptive event in my life”.
She secured a place at North Georgetown Secondary and though she had the option to do so, her mom did not want her to sit the exam again because of the stress in their lives at the time. As such, she attended that school for two years before she went to QC for three years from form three and then A-levels.
“I want to acknowledge the school [North Georgetown] and the friends I made there now, even though I spent such a short time. This is because I want those young people, who for whatever reason may not have a good start in life, to know that you don’t have to let a few hard knocks keep you from fulling your destiny and from reaching your highest potential,” the woman, who has just added to UG’s rich history, says.
That childhood experience, she says, has really made her have empathy with and to understand and nurture students who don’t show up with a good academic profile sometimes. It has also given her a profound experiential grasp of how disparities can severely affect academic performance and life outcomes. However, she believes that such things cannot affect raw innate intelligence and creativity.
“Some great people have come from that school [North Georgetown]. So, in all my planning and programming for academia, I factor in these lessons with really good results. As soon as I lay my eyes on some of these young people, I know there is an intellect in there that can really grow,” she says.
As for her years at QC, Professor Mohamed-Martin says she loved the school as much as it loved her. At that school she thrived and excelled in every way and it was there she found her voice as an artist and a leader.
“It was a different orientation. They honoured very bright people. We were allowed to argue our way out of trouble, to innovate, to push the envelope, to believe, to do diverse and wonderful things. All the labs, the resources, the incredibly dedicated teachers were there,” she says.
The teachers never stopped telling students that they could be the best and were already the best of the best. For her this was tremendously empowering and her impatience with mediocrity and indiscipline comes from there. The way she thinks, negotiates, and deals with problems, she believes, is conditioned by spending so much of her socialization in the school being one of the few girls amongst so many boys.
“The school was still a male-functional school designed to create leaders intentionally when I was there. So, us girls… they were our good friends and equals and there is a certain courage and spunk that QC girls have that distinguishes them, because of this, I think,” she boasts.
Past students also have the blessing of having a tremendously powerful network, the QC alumni family, to draw on in Guyana and worldwide.
Prerequisites
The new Vice-Chancellor was asked about the almost archaic infrastructure of UG and she admits that it is 50-plus years old, designed for 1,000 students and staff but now services about 10,000 or so a day.
“Right now, there are several massive building projects in progress and a few in design stages. Infrastructure is being addressed as resources flow, but these projects take time to deliver,” she says.
Asked about the university becoming autonomous (not having to depend on a government subvention) she responds that it is not up to her to make such decisions based on what she thinks.
“I am a scientist by training. I don’t function in an ad hoc way. We will do what is most objectively pragmatic and necessary based on a thorough analysis of facts, prevailing and projected conditions,” she continues.
She admits, however, that there is need to bolster and diversify the university’s revenue streams, through attracting funded research, technical services, philanthropy, grants, professional academics, and other offerings.
“We know what we should do but there are several prerequisites needed to act,” she adds.
Speaking to students, the new Vice-Chancellor, points out that a university education is a privilege that less than 6 % of the people in this country have been able to receive. “It is a gift from the state and taxpayers of this nation, so understand the opportunity. Make it change your life.
“To our staff, who perform well, thank you for pouring yourselves into UG and for delivering for this country despite the challenges. The road is long and winding, but we will get there,” she says.
Asked to describe who she is, she says, “I am Guyana’s child, and some might say I am servant-leader and a titanium butterfly. I believe that this path I have been placed on is under grace. And grace will lead me on.”
