Even though he sug­gests in his most re­cent re­flec­tion on the state of the na­tion that we may wish to re­vis­it the role of the Pres­i­dent, Max Richards showed that he more than any­one else un­der­stands it. When the PNM un­der Man­ning al­lowed his res­i­dence to be­come di­lap­i­dat­ed, he said noth­ing. The in­com­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment did well to leave the post of Pres­i­dent un­moved, and he, stand­ing above the fray as usu­al, went along as asked, serv­ing at the plea­sure of the Gov­ern­ment.

That he had the con­fi­dence of both the win­ners and the losers of the last elec­tion is a tes­ta­ment to his demon­strat­ed abil­i­ty to be neu­tral on po­lit­i­cal mat­ters, and to hold to prin­ci­ples, such as equal­i­ty and fair­ness, that are at the bedrock of na­tion­al life. We are for­tu­nate to have him as, frankly, our moral leader, in these times when so much around us seems taint­ed, noth­ing to be tak­en on its face. Every­thing so coarse.

In his speech to the Par­lia­ment, Richards re­turned to ed­u­ca­tion, this time to uni­ver­si­ty ed­u­ca­tion, and straight out of the blocks he laid down that from a pol­i­cy stand­point, UTT must be af­ford­ed par­i­ty of es­teem with UWI. He says this in a cli­mate in which the body lan­guage, and con­crete ac­tions of the Gov­ern­ment, has said oth­er­wise. The fo­cus has been on the Debe branch of UWI.

The chair­man of the board of UTT has been on record in one of the dai­ly pa­pers as say­ing there has been a feed­ing fren­zy at UTT, and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al has re­cent­ly sent pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters to Ken Julien and one of his board mem­bers.

Since Julien's leav­ing, three peo­ple have act­ed in the po­si­tion of pres­i­dent there, and all three have had to step down for one rea­son or oth­er. To date, two years on from Julien, UTT does not have a con­firmed pres­i­dent. It clear­ly has not been seen by the Gov­ern­ment as a high pri­or­i­ty.

Max Richards, how­ev­er, brings up the top­ic in front of the Par­lia­ment, and with the coun­try as au­di­ence, say­ing that our na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty needs at­ten­tion. And he goes fur­ther, say­ing that the na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty has to con­form to prin­ci­ples we see at UWI, and in­deed at uni­ver­si­ties of re­pute else­where, on ques­tions of the hir­ing of tal­ent at all lev­els, and on the crit­i­cal ques­tion of free­dom of speech.

In­deed, UTT has been a silent pres­ence in the so­ci­ety, a func­tion of the fact that, un­like UWI, it does not have a sys­tem of life­time tenure. Tenure pro­tects speech. Con­tract sys­tems pro­mote fear and si­lence. A uni­ver­si­ty should not hire on the ba­sis of per­son­al pref­er­ence, Max Richards as­serts. But that horse may well have left the barn at UTT. Still, it is re­as­sur­ing to hear from such a moral height that UTT is worth nur­tur­ing, that it is ours, and should be treat­ed not like the prover­bial step-child.

At the very least, the Gov­ern­ment should try, by look­ing in the mir­ror, to work out what is it about its ap­proach to UTT that has prompt­ed the alarm sound­ed by Richards. Two years on, and the sig­nals from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship with re­spect to the uni­ver­si­ty are mixed and con­fused. And yet, this is the place where we find those cit­i­zens in the mid­dle, the salt of the earth, those who form the very fab­ric of the so­ci­ety.

UTT is the most dra­mat­ic move that this coun­try has ever made to­wards the de­moc­ra­ti­sa­tion of ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion in the coun­try. It is the case that while in op­po­si­tion, some mem­bers of the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment re­ferred to it as a PNM in­sti­tu­tion, in­tend­ed for its sup­port­ers. But to the con­trary UTT, by the most cur­so­ry in­spec­tion of the faces of its stu­dents, re­flects our won­der­ful di­ver­si­ty.

UTT has been ne­glect­ed by this Gov­ern­ment. And the Pres­i­dent is say­ing that a uni­ver­si­ty is not like any oth­er in­sti­tu­tion-it can­not be treat­ed as a spoil of the elec­tions. For the sake of the coun­try I hope the Gov­ern­ment lis­tens to him. The es­tab­lish­ment of UTT is one of our sig­nal achieve­ments since in­de­pen­dence.

Theodore Lewis

Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus

Uni­ver­si­ty of Min­neso­ta