The University of the West Indies (UWI) has established the McIntyre/Nettleford Scholarship Fund.
The University of the West Indies (UWI) has established the McIntyre/Nettleford scholarship as a new scholarship fund for high-achieving youth from disenfranchised backgrounds. The scholarship was launched at a luncheon on Friday 10 June, 2016 at Terra Nova Hotel in Jamaica. Professor Louise Richardson, the first female Vice-Chancellor of the 800-year-old Oxford University, was the featured speaker.
McIntyre/Nettleford Scholarship Coverage
The McIntyre/Nettleford scholarship will cover all costs for an undergraduate degree at The UWI, and will be maintained through an endowment fund, in which the investment income will support the scholarship awards. The fund honours two of The UWI’s former Vice-Chancellors, Sir Alister McIntyre, and the late Professor Rex Nettleford who are both among a list of distinguished Caribbean nationals who graduated from Oxford University.
Professor Louise Richardson congratulated The UWI on the establishment of the McIntyre/Nettleford scholarship. Noting that The UWI is just 68 years old, she said “an investment in an endowment for scholarships today, will have grown exponentially by the time The UWI celebrates its centenary—many lives will be transformed in the process.”
Speaking at the luncheon, themed The Ethical University: Poverty Must Fall: Empowering Marginalized Communities, Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles explained that the scholarship fund “recognises the importance of making an educational experience accessible to our most promising young scholars.” He added, “The scholarship celebrates the history of connectedness between Oxford and The UWI.”
Also speaking at the event was Mariame Robinson, President and CEO of First Global Bank which sponsored the luncheon. She recounted her “transformative and truly enjoyable” experience at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar in the ’90s and reminded guests that “the norms and access we have today come from other shoulders that we are standing on from prior generations.”
Oxford alumni, the Hon. Hugh Hart, O.J., Attorney at Law and Hon. Roderick Rainford, former Secretary-General of CARICOM, were also in attendance and presented pledges as early donors towards the scholarship.
About The UWI
Since its inception in 1948, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a fully-fledged, regional University with over 50,000 students. Today, The UWI is the largest, most longstanding higher education provider in the Commonwealth Caribbean, with three physical campuses in Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and an Open Campus.
The UWI serves 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, The British Virgin Islands, The Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos.
The UWI’s faculty and students come from more than 40 countries and The University has collaborative links with 160 universities globally; it offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology and Social Sciences.
The UWI’s seven priority focal areas are linked closely to the priorities identified by CARICOM and take into account such over-arching areas of concern to the region as environmental issues, health and wellness, gender equity and the critical importance of innovation.
For more information, visit http://www.uwi.edu/
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