New Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts coming to The UWI, Cave Hill Campus

Regional
Headquarters, Jamaica. Tuesday, November 19, 2019—On
next
year’s observance of Emancipation Day, the region’s cultural
landscape will receive a significant uplift when The University of
the West Indies (The UWI) at Cave Hill launches a new Faculty of
Culture, Creative and Performing Arts.

It
will be The UWI’s ninth faculty – the seventh at Cave Hill –
and is expected to open up a world of opportunities for aspiring
cultural artists, performing arts practitioners and facilitate
in-depth study of the Caribbean’s much celebrated culture.

Establishment
of the new Faculty was approved on October 31, when The UWI’s
Senate, the regional institution’s highest decision-making body,
met at its Regional Headquarters in Jamaica. The Faculty of Culture,
Creative and Performing Arts will begin operations from August 1,
2020 and will offer multidisciplinary and cross-faculty teachings.

The
UWI Senate agreed that the creative economy was global in scope and
presented an opportunity for the Caribbean to formalize its vast
available resources in culture, creative imagination, and the
creative sector. In that regard, The UWI has a pivotal role to
transition creative and cultural practitioners from a local or
seasonal space, to being major players on the international stage,
with a local commercial presence anchored within the region. The new
Faculty will be driven by a focus on deepening critical studies of
Caribbean culture and identity as well as global economic imperatives
that centre the creative industry within the academy. It will,
therefore, empower graduates to generate personal and national
wealth, local intellectual property rights, new employment
opportunities, jobs and businesses regionally. It also opens a new
conversation regarding the Caribbean as an owner and rights holder
rather than a participant in the global creative economy that today
accounts for USD $2.225 billion or 3% of the world’s GDP.

Commenting
on the initiative, Vice-Chancellor of The UWI, Professor Sir Hilary
Beckles drew reference to the small minority of local artistes who
succeed globally. “The majority” he said “are seasonal artistes
dependent on festivals, craft fairs and pop up shops. Far too few
are on the international stage producing outputs and generating
revenues from global production, marketing, and distribution from a
home-based commercial enterprise that is generating employment
opportunities, building new sectors and earning foreign exchange for
the domestic economy.”

He
continued: “According to an Ernst and Young study, cultural sectors
in Europe employ more persons between 15-29 than any other sector;
including more women. Globally, creatives employ more persons in the
United States, Japan and Europe than the entire automotive industry.
These are staggering numbers.”

A
measurable increase in the number, scale, and reach of creative and
cultural practitioners in international trade and business; clear
alignment with national and regional development priorities for the
creative economy; transformation of creative talent and performance
skills into formal commercial entities; opportunities for existing
business students or business graduates of The UWI to develop
specialist skills in service to the creative industries; development
of globally positioned entertainment management companies with newly
developed skills to represent Caribbean creatives, are just some of
the major outcomes projected by the University.

Pro
Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus, Professor
Eudine Barriteau stated that the establishment of the Faculty is an
acknowledgement by The UWI that the Orange Economy represents the
business of the region’s immediate future including the creative
industries, film, animation, the gaming industry, theatre, dance,
painting, sculpture, performance, music industry and video
production.

“These
have to be developed and offered in synergy with Caribbean cultural
studies,” she noted. “The Faculty endorses the UWI’s commitment
to develop these sectors for intellectual, economic and aesthetic
purposes and assures that there will be an emphasis on both greater
research into Caribbean culture and the business of the creative
industries.

She
added that the Government of Barbados has prioritized the Creative
Economy as a key plank in its national development strategy. On this
basis, the Government has expressed overwhelming endorsement for the
Cave Hill initiative and pledged full support for collaborations. She
said the Campus will appoint an Implementation Committee and a
Creative and Cultural Studies Curriculum Development Committee, to
include industry practitioners and national stakeholders, to assist
in developing new programmes to be offered by the Faculty.

END

IMAGE:

Photo
caption

The
Errol Barrow Centre for Creative Imagination and the Department of
Cultural Studies at The UWI Cave Hill Campus which will be the centre
of the new Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts.

About
The UWI

For
over 70 years The University of the West Indies (The UWI) has
provided service and leadership to the Caribbean region and wider
world. The UWI has evolved from a university college of London in
Jamaica with 33 medical students in 1948 to an internationally
respected, regional 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 an Open Campus. As part of its robust
globalization agenda, The UWI has established partnering centres with
universities in North America, Latin America, Asia, and Africa
including the State
University of New York (SUNY)-UWI Center for Leadership and
Sustainable Development;
the Canada-Caribbean Studies Institute with Brock University; the
Strategic Alliance for Hemispheric Development with Universidad de
los Andes (UNIANDES); the UWI-China Institute of Information
Technology, the University of Lagos (UNILAG)-UWI Institute of African
and Diaspora Studies and the
Institute for Global African Affairs with the University of
Johannesburg (UJ).
The UWI offers over 800 certificate, diploma, undergraduate and
postgraduate degree options in Food & Agriculture, Engineering,
Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science &
Technology, Social Sciences and Sport. 

As
the region’s premier research academy, The UWI’s foremost
objective is driving the growth and development of the regional
economy. The world’s most reputable ranking agency, Times
Higher Education,
has ranked The UWI among the top 600 universities in the world for
2019 and 2020, and the 40 best universities in Latin America and the
Caribbean for 2018 and 2019. The UWI has been the only
Caribbean-based university to make the prestigious lists. For more,
visit www.uwi.edu.