XXXX AROUND CAMPUS
Charting a New Legal Future
I t was a fitting end to the 2023 Legacy Lecture Series as the This inextricable link was noted by lecturer and Head of the faculty’s Law and Health Research Unit Nicole Foster as she presented the ninth and final lecture on 29 November 2023 titled “The Cave Hill Law Faculty – A Legacy of Excellence, Charting New Paths for the Future” . With the Faculty of Law’s establishment in 1970, what started out as a College of Arts and Sciences in temporary housing at the Bridgetown Harbour soon transitioned to the full-fledged University of the West Indies campus that had moved to a permanent home at Cave Hill. Foster looked back at the faculty’s spotlight was shone on the Faculty of Law, the faculty whose story is an integral part of that of the Cave Hill campus. modest beginnings, student enrolment, staff complement, and some of the individuals who were instrumental in its development. Among those were former Vice-Chancellor Professor Sir Roy Marshall and eminent Caribbean jurist and former Chief Justice of Trinidad and Tobago Sir Hugh Wooding who each served as leaders of the faculty and promoted its establishment; the faculty’s first dean, Professor Keith Patchett ; and legal luminaries Professor Ralph Carnegie , and P. Telford Georges .
Nicole Foster former Deputy Dean, Faculty of Law The UWI, Cave Hill Campus
Documenting its history, deepening engagement with regional governments, and reaching out to alumni were among suggestions put to the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill as the curtain came down on the campus’s blue-ribbon lecture series to mark its 60 th anniversary.
She said the journey was not always smooth as the faculty has faced infrastructural challenges, such as the law library, which has a critical function, initially having to house its law journals offsite due to space constraints. However, conditions have improved for the law library, and its initial collection of around 10,000 books , periodicals and other reading materials has mushroomed to around 500,000 currently housed onsite together with a wide range of electronic resources, and most recently, the creation of a state-of-the-art learning commons space for students. She said the faculty’s student enrolment has blossomed to an estimated 500, a drastic change from the 38 enrolled in its early years. The full-time staff complement has moved from three to the current 11. Turning her attention to the programme offerings, the lecturer said these have been expanded beyond traditional topics to important areas like Alternative Dispute Resolution, Gender and the Law, Commonwealth Caribbean Sports Law, Global Health Law, and Corporate and Commercial Law. More meaningful for the award-winning
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