By Robert A. Emmanuel
The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has appointed Professor Stafford A. Griffith as Interim Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of its Five Islands Campus located in Antigua and Barbuda with effect from August 15th 2019 until July 31st 2020.
Professor Griffith will lead the Campus for its initial year of operation, which is expected to welcome its first cohort of students in September. An official launch of the Campus with The UWI Executive Management team is also planned in that month.
Established to provide a development platform for Antigua and Barbuda, the new Five Islands Campus will also function as a hub for the OECS and serve to expand The UWI’s regional capacity in the delivery of higher education for the 21st Century.
It will begin with three schools—the School of Health and Behavioural Sciences; the School of Management, Sciences and Technology; and the School of Humanities and Education.
Approval of the regional university’s newest campus was announced by Vice-Chancellor, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, during a media conference held on Wednesday 26 June 2019.
Professor Griffith previously served as Regional Director of the University’s Office of Online Learning (OOL) since October 2017, Director of The UWI’s School of Education, and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the Mona Campus from August 2012 to September 2017.
He has also spent more than 35 years of his career at the professional and senior management levels in fields covering educational measurement and evaluation, programme planning and management, curriculum development, and teaching.
The holder of a Professorial Chair in Research, Measurement and Evaluation, Professor Griffith’s postgraduate qualifications consist of specialised study in research, measurement and evaluation, and curriculum development. He also holds an LLB degree and has completed graduate studies in the areas of Political Science and Development Studies.
In addition to academia, Professor Griffith’s career spans multiple roles; among them: Director of the USAID-funded Caribbean Centre of Excellence for Teacher Training (CCETT) headquartered at The UWI Mona Campus, Pro-Registrar of the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), having previously served the Council as Assistant Registrar as well as Head of a Project Unit; Consultant/National Coordinator of a World Bank and Ministry of Education Reform of Secondary Education (ROSE) Project, Jamaica; Director of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and The UWI Institutional Strengthening Project; and Senior Education Project Manager of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Regional Development Office/Caribbean.
He has also served as a resource person in a number of regional and national curriculum development, teacher training and measurement and evaluation activities, and as a consultant to a number of regional and international institutions and organisations, including the Ministry of Education (Guyana), the University of Guyana, the Caribbean Examinations Council, the Norman Manley Law School (Jamaica), the Eugene Dupuch Law School (The Bahamas), the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), TECSULT International Limited (Montreal) and the Van Leer Foundation (Holland).
Professor Griffith boasts an impressive record of public service, research and scholarly work.
He has served on a number of national boards, committees and commissions, and currently serves as the Chairman of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Caribbean Examinations Council.
His research and publications include at least 90 items comprising journal articles, scientific/scholarly papers, technical reports, book and book chapters, and monographs in areas related to various aspects of education, including innovations in education, educational reforms, educational measurement and evaluation, and online learning.
His book on School-Based Assessment in a Caribbean Public Examination (UWI Press) received the Principal’s Research Award in 2016 for Best Research Publication (book category) in the Faculty of Humanities and Education at The UWI Mona Campus.