Fourteen eminent persons are to receive honorary degrees from The University of the West Indies (The UWI) during its upcoming Class of 2023 graduation ceremonies, starting October 7.
The annual tradition of conferring honorary degrees, which coincides this year with the regional university’s 75th jubilee celebrations will commemorate the outstanding contributions made by these individuals to their communities and the wider society.
The honorees will join hundreds of students across the Five Islands, Cave Hill, St Augustine, Mona, and Global (formerly Open Campus) campuses who are graduating and marking the end of their studies.
The schedule for the 2023 ceremonies and the list of honorary graduands follow.
• Five Islands Campus – October 7
Sir Leroy ‘King Short Shirt’ Emanuel
• Cave Hill Campus – October 21
Ian Hickling
Alison Hinds
Trisha Tannis
• St. Augustine Campus – October 26-28
Baroness Floella Benjamin, OM, DBE, DL
Heather Headley
Lawrence Scott
• Mona Campus – November 3-4
Professor E. Dale Abel
The Hon. Lascelles A Chin (posthumous)
Hugh Beresford Hammond, OJ
Rachel Manley
Her Excellency Audrey Patrice Marks
• Global Campus (formerly Open Campus) – November 11
Monsignor Hon. Dr Patrick ‘Paba’ Anthony, SLC
The Right Honourable Dame Janet Gwennett Bostwick, CB, DBE
About Monsignor Honourable Dr Patrick
‘Paba’ Anthony, SLC
This Roman Catholic priest, whose ordination ceremony in Saint Lucia in 1972 was the first to include the sound of African drums, steel pan, and guitar, would later become the first to attempt celebrating Mass in his native tongue, Saint Lucian Kwéyòl. A unique figure in that country’s history, Msgr Patrick ‘Paba’ Anthony came out of the ferment that followed the Catholic Church’s Vatican II, as it impacted the Caribbean Catholic Church.
A passionate advocate of the then current concept of ‘New Caribbean Personhood’, he promoted Black awareness and Caribbean consciousness among groups of young people in parishes through the use of Caribbean-style worship songs and liturgical vestments, and the celebration of indigenous religious art on church murals. He encouraged involvement at the grass roots levels of the parishes, with a special concern for the young, the poor, the elderly and the homeless.
In 1973, he founded the Folk Research Centre whose media programmes for the first time brought to the wider Saint Lucian public, authentic information on their folk culture. This fostered positive attitudes towards Saint Lucia’s first language, Kwéyòl, and led to its acceptance into hitherto closed places like mainstream Media, Parliament, and written publications, culminating in the birth of the nation’s largest contemporary cultural festival, Jounen Kwéyòl.
Theologian, communications specialist, and cultural activist, Msgr Anthony’s commitment to church and culture led him to establish the Jubilee Trust Fund to assist young artists, cultural activists and researchers; the St. Lucy’s Home for rehabilitation of street people; and the Conference on Theology in the Caribbean Today (CTCT), which he co-founded in 1994. Recipient of the Saint Lucia Cross (2000) and named a National Cultural Hero (2013), he was declared a Laureate in 2019, by the World Association for Christian Communication (WACC).
Msgr Dr Patrick Anthony has made an enduring impression on modern Saint Lucia and shaped a generation that now forms Caribbean leadership.