The University of Guyana has always been a major concern of consumers and the public in general. Most parents would wish their children to attend the University and most children try for as good grades as they could at the CXC Examinations so as to satisfy the University entrance requirements.

But despite this desire to attend the University, the institution has been negatively criticized from every angle over the last several years and many felt its decline could never be reversed and that it would never reach world standards.

At this point, like a sudden flash of lightening in a very dark sky, Professor Griffith was appointed Vice Chancellor. Prof Griffith is a Guyanese who was among the earlier graduates of the University of Guyana and from UG he went on the United States where he entered American Academia.

In American Academia, he won its highest awards and served in very important academic positions both as an administrator and teacher. Professor Griffith was what is usually termed “a very successful American” and could have spent the rest of his life in that great country like so many other successful Guyanese.

But Prof Griffith never forgot his homeland and at much personal sacrifice returned to Guyana to give back something to his Alma Mater and the land of his birth. For this, Guyanese people are grateful.

From the very first month of his service as Vice Chancellor, he injected a spirit of enthusiasm and hope into the University community which many had thought to be inert. The university began to “buzz”, which for a long time it had not done.

Prof Griffith was full of ideas and plans all aimed to make the University a world-class institution; to raise the academic standards of both students and staff; to develop closer relations with the best academic institutions abroad; to have the University positively contributing to the economic and social life of Guyana and to encourage individual students to engage themselves in programes for the betterment of community life.

In an article of limited size, it would be impossible to deal with the many plans and ideas which he has adumbrated since he became Chief Executive Officer of the University. The launching of the public lecture series after being VC for just a few months, characterizes the imagination and drive of the man. The first lecture in the series was on Brexit in which members of the Diplomatic Corps participated and brought back to Georgetown an enjoyable and creative intellectual life which had completely disappeared for many decades.

The most recent lecture in the series took place on 15th November last and was on the implications of the American elections on Guyana and the rest of the Western Hemisphere. The panel of lecturers included Mr Dormeous of the OAS and Mr Pierre Giroux, High Commissioner of Canada, two accomplished diplomats, the Vice Chancellor himself and the Deputy Vice Chancellor. The discussions were of the highest levels.

In addressing the many problems of the University, one of Prof Griffith’s earliest statements was to reject any political interference in the University. This position was very popular among the University community and in the country as a whole.

Another innovation is his re-affiliation of the alumni of the University. Such a programe would benefit not only the University but the country as a whole and many UG graduates in various foreign countries have again begun to think of their Alma Mater and their homeland in positive terms.

He has also began working to raise the quality of the teaching staff by a variety of methods which include further exposure and training of the present staff and trying to get distinguished academics from various foreign universities to teach at the University.

He has been stressing research since so little research has been done and so very few papers published at the University.

This deficiency has no reflection on the quality of our graduates since many UG graduates at foreign universities have produced notable and important work in various disciplines.
He has aspirations and realistic plans of making a richer student life as well as improving the University’s infrastructure. All of these aspirations and plans have been encapsulated in the term “UG Renaissance” which will unfold themselves in due course.

Prof Griffith is working for the uplifting of the social, economic and political life of the nation and making Guyana a more unified country subsuming all its various brands of divisiveness and allowing optimism be again restored to the Guyanese psyche. In our own individual and collective interests, we need to give Prof Griffith our fullest support, understanding and cooperation.