“UWI leadership sound and strategic” – Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
The UWI Regional Headquarters, Jamaica. Saturday, March 27, 2021— Culminating with yesterday’s presentation by the Five Islands Campus, over the past few weeks the Councils that govern the campuses of The University of the West Indies (The UWI) heard how the regional University has fared favourably over the 2019-2020 academic year.
In the face of increasing challenges crippling Caribbean economies and the global higher education sector, intensified by COVID-19, the regional University has responded to support emergency online learning across its territories, helped Caribbean governments fight the pandemic, increased access to education, built strategic partnerships and overall created value for the region.
The UWI’s resilience and continued success is testament to its sound strategic plan that provides the framework for its service and leadership to the Caribbean through teaching, leaning, research and innovation.
According to Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, “University leadership is not an ad hoc business. It begins with the finest intellectual reading of the situation, intellectual projections of the future and the mobilisations of policies and programmes into that future imagining, and this is why the implementation of our Triple A Strategic Plan has efficaciously steered our campuses.”
Led by Densil A. Williams, Professor of International Business and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Academic-Industry Partnerships and Planning, The UWI’s Triple A Strategy (2017-2022) is supported by a modern system of reporting and measuring. From inception, the strategic framework was supported by a University-wide electronic balanced scorecard using Kaplan & Norton's Balanced Scorecard framework.
Strategic objectives are interlinked to help the University achieve its overall vision and mission to become more accessible, aligned and agile by the end of the strategic planning cycle. The electronic scorecard is used to monitor, evaluate and report on the plan, on quarterly and annual intervals at the University Council and Finance & General Purposes meetings. Scorecards were built with an accountability framework in place at both the campus and wider university levels to monitor progress on initiatives, risks and outcomes.
At the campus levels, although the Principals are responsible for the overall scorecards, Deans have direct responsibility for Faculty scorecards and Heads of Departments have responsibility for departmental scorecards which are aggregated to produce the campus scorecard. Similarly, administrators such as Registrars, Bursars and Pro Vice-Chancellors have scorecards that feed into the Campuses and University’s Regional Headquarters along the lines of their reporting relationships.
In addition to these strategic monitoring tools, The UWI, through the University’s Office of Planning has routinely facilitated metrics workshops—the latest was held earlier this month—with the aim of advancing a set of common, core operational metrics to be implemented across the University system at the start of the upcoming new academic year. This overall accountability and ownership is key to the continued efficient management of The UWI.
On Friday, April 30, 2021, the University Council will hear from Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, an account of the overall University system and its Centre operations—how the strategic plan has progressed since its implementation and more specifically, accomplishments during the last academic year. He will also outline the vision, leadership philosophy and road map to solidify the future for The UWI and the Caribbean that it is committed to serve.
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About The UWI
The UWI has been and continues to be a pivotal force in every aspect of Caribbean development; residing at the centre of all efforts to improve the well-being of people across the region.
From a university college of London in Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948, The UWI is today an internationally respected, global university with near 50,000 students and five campuses: Mona in Jamaica, St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, Cave Hill in Barbados, Five Islands in Antigua and Barbuda and its Open Campus, and 10 global centres in partnership with universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, Africa and Europe.
The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Culture, Creative and Performing Arts, Food and Agriculture, Engineering, Humanities and Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science and Technology, Social Sciences, and Sport. As the Caribbean’s leading university, it possesses the largest pool of Caribbean intellect and expertise committed to confronting the critical issues of our region and wider world.
Ranked among the top universities in the world, by the most reputable ranking agency, Times Higher Education, The UWI is the only Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists. In 2020, it earned ‘Triple 1st’ rankings—topping the Caribbean; and in the top in the tables for Latin America and the Caribbean, and global Golden Age universities (between 50 and 80 years old). The UWI is also featured among the top universities on THE’s Impact Rankings for its response to the world’s biggest concerns, outlined in the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Good Health and Wellbeing; Gender Equality and Climate Action.
For more, visit www.uwi.edu.
(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)
