Vice-Chancellor’s Report
THANKING SIR ALISTER
The following tribute was authored by Vice- Chancellor Beckles on Sir Alister’s passing I was but a rookie, in UWI years, when Sir Alister, after blazing a global trail, wheeled and returned to the realm as a Caribbean colossus to serve us as Vice-Chancellor. The timing was perfect. His presence powerful and turbulent. Together, they constituted an image reflective of the ground-scorching cover drive we had come to expect of Viv Richards. The academic community, long accustomed to having its way, wished to be wooed. Alister was not the wooing sort. They braced for the anticipated bruising winds of change. His full-blown reputation, sown in the richest soils of Caribbean scholarship and matured in the cut and thrust of post-colonial regional political governance, was respected and celebrated in the global corridors of the United Nations. No one doubted that he was a no-nonsense transformative leader. He arrived at the Mona Campus in the August of 1988, but his identity had departed from Geneva for Kingston in May while the poui bloomed; colourful rumours of his selection were everywhere.
It was a most extraordinary summer. The West Indies cricketers defeated England 4-0 in the Test series, against the background of two successive 5-0 “black washings”. It was the climax of the 50 th anniversary celebrations of the University’s service to the region. It was the 20 th anniversary of the purging of Walter Rodney from the home campus, an action that opened up in a biblical discursive fashion; what wrong had this brilliant man done to deserve such drastic treatment? And, as fate would have it, Sir Alister arrived at the crease to find that not only was the wicket slippery, but the dark clouds were gathering and the skies were about to open up. Some called it ‘an act of God’. We named it Gilbert. Its fury found and focused upon Jamaica while the Vice-Chancellor was meeting and greeting his colleagues. It blew the roof off the Mona Campus. It wasn’t personal; it was September 12. Thirty-six years had passed since Kingston had felt such ferocity. History and hurricane had huddled to greet the arrival of the man tipped to bring the winds of change.
A generation of academics, leaders, and administrators was schooled in the McIntyre Model and mentality.
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