On Saturday October 16, 2021, The University of the West Indies (The UWI) Open Campus held its second virtual Presentation of Graduates Ceremony via UWItv platforms to celebrate the Class of 2021. At this ceremony, the Campus recognized the accomplishments of 46 Dominicans (and more than 800 graduates overall) from across the region for the 2020/2021 academic year and conferred one honorary degree, Doctor of Laws (LLD).
This year, 877 students (628 undergraduates and 249 postgraduates) graduated with degrees, diplomas, and certificates in various disciplines. Of the total number of graduates, 598 were females (544 undergraduate and 54 postgraduates) and 278 males (84 undergraduate and 194 postgraduate). From the graduating class, 220 students achieved First Class honours degrees.
Chancellor of The UWI, Robert Bermudez in his address to the graduating class implored the graduands to ensure that their future pursuits are impactful and performed at a high standard. Chancellor Bermudez told the graduands that they must be committed to advancing not only their personal interest, but also those of the communities in which they live.
“Hold fast to your dreams, but remain rooted in reality and respect everyone no matter their status. Go out and dream large and make us proud”, the Chancellor stated.
During the virtual ceremony, The UWI conferred an Honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) on Jamaican-born Mr George Samuel Willie, CPA, CGMA, CGFM CGFM, International Auditor, Leader, and Philanthropist for his service to the accounting profession.
Delivering the Valedictorian’s address was Ms Laura Ramoutar of Trinidad and Tobago who completed a Bachelor of Education in Early Childhood Development and Family Studies with First Class Honours. In her speech to the graduating class, she lauded the Open Campus for making their dream a reality and urged fellow graduates to transform their finish line into a stepping-stone and forge ahead.
“Whatever you decide to do and wherever you decide to go, choose a path that allows you to be of service to others. You have been blessed with an opportunity that individuals in other parts of the world can only hope for. Turn your knowledge into action”, Ms Ramoutar stated.
The UWI Open Campus congratulates the Class of 2021 and wishes them success in their future endeavours.
The Class of 2021 included 46 Dominicans. There were 39 undergraduates with 22 receiving First Class honours. There were seven graduates, and of that, five received Distinctions.
Photos of the 33 Dominican Students who participated in the ceremony can be found below:
Congratulations to all of you on your hard work and performance.
But, what I see is very alarming. 31 female graduates, 2 male graduates. We need to think seriously about the future implication of this trend and how young men can be encouraged to pursue tertiary education, in an academic discipline or in a skilled trade.
Congratulations to all. The hard work has finally paid off. It is never an easy journey. All the best in your future endeavours!!!
Congratulations to all, however, too many management studies. What I realized is that, it looks like once people going to study first thing they can choose from is management. It reminds me of when we used to go school your parents used to tell you be a teacher, a police officer or nurse and never tell you about sports, Agriculture, doctor and lawyers. Guys out there, there are many different areas of studies to choose from for e.g. BSc in engineering, electrical and electronics, computer science, Agriculture, athetectual design, LL.Bs , Sciences, education etc etc. Enough management in Dominica by now.
Lol….not sure if you realise that an undergraduate degree opens doors to several different graduate programs. Though there were many management degrees, the specializations were not all the same. Some of these Management degrees focused on finance, accounting, marketing, human resource, international studies etc. I am one of the graduates and though my undergraduate is in management, my masters degree which I will be starting in January will be in Communications.
Saying all of this just to point out that an undergraduate is no one’s final destination. Stop making ill-informed, ignorant comments. 🤦♀️🤦♀️
Well, brothers ought to be happy. Men had been the bread winners for centuries; now it’s time to take a break and let our women bring home the Bacon 🥓. Time changes and so do women.
Education is not the same as making money bro some of the richest people in the world are university dropouts. there’s a lot of people making money without any degrees. In fact many of those degrees are completely useless and some of these people spend years in college/university only to go sit at home working some online job or going into teaching (the same useless crap that they learn in college) or into some ordinary office job that they are over qaulified for. And this is coming from a university graduate working in a STEM field. Half of the people I work with do not have degrees and they do fine at their job. Most of them are men btw hahaha
@Big Daws – You are quite correct with your comment. When one checks the backgrounds of a number of the powerful people who run the world, a number of them are either university dropouts or people who never went to university.
If one is able to go to university and pursue knowledge in important subject areas – not those senseless unambitious subjects such as Gender, Women Studies & the rest of those delusional leftist nonsensical subjects – then make use of the opportunity.
I concur with you. Never disregard someone who for one reason or the other never bothered with or was unable to go to university.
Congrats to everyone. No politics here..nice. Wish we could do keep it positive for everyone who is celebrating their accomplishments.
Congratulations to all the UWI graduates. BIG UP UWI
@FOR LOVE OF COUNTRY
Please give the women their dues. They chose to prioritize their education. It’s not their fault that the men chose to stand around on the street corners and play gangster.
You are generalising here..There are many young MEN that i know of, that have shunned the gangster life, and have embraced opportunities not just via UWI, but in other learning institutions, and are doing, and have done remarkably well for themselves. But if you say we do need more to follow, i’ll concur with you.
CONGRATS TO ALL!!!
Congratulations to all. But some many degrees in Management Studies.
And ADMIN the photo of Kamasha-Lloyd is posted twice
ADMIN: We appreciate that you took the time to point that out to us.
The graduates did different specializations in Management which were not specified in the article.
Congratulation to all the successful graduates. I hope you would use your just earned success to make your society a much better place to live.
My questions and concerns are these:-
Firstly, would these new graduates be able to gain meaningful employment in order to put their newly gained knowledge to full use with the present economy bleeding jobs like a fresh, ghastly laceration to the head?
Secondly, we need more people graduating with a skill (civil & mechanical engineering, architecture, draughting technicians) etc.
Special incentives should be given to young people who wish to pursue tertiary education in areas where the country needs them most.
Only two men graduated…. continue to educate of women they ALONE will take Dominica to the next level.
Your argument is rather spurious. Honest, caring, enterprising and disciplined citizens, men or women, would take Dominica to the next level.
We must put our best in leadership positions whether in government, the public service or in civil society. This gender biased agenda should be summarily dismissed and buried.
Men are interested in different areas: Electricity, tiling, plumbing, music, Civil, Construction, Coding, surveying etc. Provide them and you’ll see more men.
Basically every useful thing that keeps society running. The women can keep all those useless degrees. People will hate what I say but the fact is that majority of university graduates outside of medicine and STEM do not end up working in the fields that they spent years studying for because those kinds of jobs do not exist. A lot of schools are coming up with all of these crazy nonsense degrees – this studies, that studies. They learn all kinds of useless garbage while people who never set foot in a campus spend a few months in a boot camp or some online course and learn a skill that can actually make them money. We need more skills based education right now education is being used more as a tool to propagandize young people
You sound like on of those unambitious men waiting around for somebody to hand you a bone. What do you mean “educate the women alone?” The women take upon themselves to be educated while the men sit by doing what?? Somebody has t take a gun and force the men to educate themselves? Do you realise that many women are taking the lead because men like you sit by and wait? Carry on! the best leadership in Dominica came from a woman PM.