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Hylton tells UWI graduates to be productive Observer Reporter |
CHAIRMAN of the Port Authority of Jamaica, Noel Hylton, on Saturday challenged graduates of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, to become productive in their new endeavours and to enter the "new world" with the will to succeed Hylton, who was addressing the graduates after he was conferred with the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by the UWI, said although the world was filled with new opportunities and new adversities and would continue to limit economic development, there was no alternative for them but to become productive.
He also urged the graduates to be committed to continuous learning, strengthen their partnership with colleagues to achieve high productivity and become involved so as to make the social environment better.
"We have been slow in the past but we must show resilience and the spirit to overcome," he said, adding that those who embrace the quality of progress were those who would progress in the new world order.
He, however, warned that the new world was filled with great temptations as white collar crimes were rampant .
Just over 2,500 students graduated from the Mona campus of the UWI this year, with only 25 five per cent of them males. Meanwhile, 5,985 students overall graduated this year from the three UWI campuses -- Mona, St Augustine in Trinidad and Cave Hill in Barbados. These included distance education students.
In his address at the Mona graduation on Saturday, vice chancellor, Professor Rex Nettleford said the university had long awaken to the importance of research and development. He referred to evidence of research into rastafarianism, sickle cell disease, diabetes and extraction of canasol from ganja. "No one should find satisfaction in declaiming that the UWI since its inception has not been dedicated to matters concerning the development of the West Indies," Nettleford said.
And chancellor, Sir Shridath Ramphal, who was attending the World Trade Organisation conference in Quatar, and whose message was read by Professor Nettleford, urged the graduates to recognise that they were entering the world at a time of great turbulence, of unimaginable violence, destruction and of forces that have stirred up humanity's deepest passions. "...a time when our much vaunted globalisation has revealed its darker side and where for millions the future seems full of fear and fright. "It is a time in our complex, contradictory, inter-connected world when there are no simple definitions and no easy answers."