–3,500 graduate from UG
–Five conferred with Honorary Doctorates
–new scholarship announced

DESCRIBING it as ‘a legacy moment’ in the history of the University of Guyana (UG), Chancellor Professor John Edward Greene on Saturday oversaw the final day of graduation at the National Cultural Centre (NCC) in Georgetown.

The historic event saw the graduation of some 3,500 students. The institution also conferred Honorary Doctorates on 10 renowned Guyanese; five on Friday and five on Saturday.
They include Guyanese-American actress Carol Christine Hilaria Pounder, popularly known as CCH Pounder; teacher-turned-renowned painter Bernadette Persaud; Kanhai Ken Singh, President and owner of Atlas Cargo, Canadian Customs Brokers Inc., and Central Global Cargo North America; and Jeannette and Richard Allsopp.

Jeannette Allsopp is a retired Senior Research Fellow in Lexicography, founder and former Director of the Richard and Jeannette Allsopp Centre for Caribbean Lexicography, and Lecturer in Linguistics at The UWI Cave Hill Campus in Barbados.

Her husband, Richard, served as the second President of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics from 1976 to 1978, and was elected an Honorary Member of the Society in 1994. He died in 2009.
During the ceremony, it was announced that seed money was put forward for the CCH Pounder Fine Arts Scholarship, which was donated by friends and family of the actress.

Dean of the Faculty of Education and Humanities Dr. Roslin Khan, who gave her citation on the Guyanese actress, said, “She is a celebrated actress, and a civic- minded philanthropist.”
The Dean spoke about the actress’ life and work; from her migration to Britian, then American to her numerous nominations and awards.

“She has held Guyana close to her heart and she will continue to do so. She is currently working on a civic engagement imitative for her beloved homeland and will make that announcement when the time is right,” Dr. Khan said.

Pounder herself began her address by expressing the importance of hard work and perseverance, and the role it plays in the future. As she told the graduating class, “You have arrived here, but you have yet to accomplish. This is the easy part. There is work to be done in all of your fields, and I am so glad that you sitting here as a part of the Arts and Humanities. And I will tell you why. Scientists, doctors and lawyers will always be needed; we have people to sue and bodies to mend. But sometimes, the imagination is the thing that offers that doctor or scientist a new idea; a new way of doing things, and I am so proud to be a part of that nation of artists.”

Pounder, who left Guyana at the age of seven, also spoke to the parents of the graduates, highlighting that she understood the struggles they face.

“I am particularly happy with your parents,” she said, adding: “I know that it is not easy to get from Point A to Point B, and I am a fantastic example of that. But I am not going to tell you about my horror stories, and I do not want you to tell other people yours. I want you to simply arrive to that next place and say, ‘I am here, all is well.’”

She encouraged the graduating class to keep the tenacity inherent in many Guyanese and Caribbean people. She ended her address on a note of love, as she recited Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116.
Dean Khan would later introduce the second recipient of the Honorary Doctorate for Excellence in Fine Arts and Civic Engagement, Bernadette Persaud. Persaud is a Guyanese painter who hails from Berbice; she made the extraordinary leap from teaching to being a full-time professional artist.

She was among the first graduates of the Burrowes School of Art and is today known as one of the country’s best writers, educators and painters. Persaud left the teaching profession in 1980 as a graduate teacher at St. Roses High, a she describes as a period of social and political unrest.

Quoting Guyanese poet Martin Carter, she said, “It was the season of oppression.” But art, she said, was different and far better, and the step she needed to take for an improved life for both her family and herself.

Honorary Doctorates were also awarded for Excellence in Business and Community Service. Mr. Al Creighton of the Faculty of Education and Humanities delivered the first citation on Kanhai Ken Singh.

“We are in the presence of a gentleman of talent, honour and nobility, who is frightfully successful in international business but retains a gentle humility tutored by the circumscribed conditions of his growing up in rural British Guiana. A well-trained learned professional who places a very high value on education, and who is universalist with the experience of working around the globe,” Professor Creighton shared.

In his own address, Singh reminded the graduates that the occasion is not about him, but rather another learning experience.

“Don’t follow the path necessarily, for if you have to plough the fields of the forest to make it to where you want, this is your first grand step. This is not about me; it is about my experience to share it with you, so that you don’t have to go and create the wheel all over again, use the wheel. Take this as your first towards success.”

For the last degree of the day, a joint degree was given to Dr Jeannette Allsopp and the deceased, Richard Allsopp for Excellence in Literature and Linguistics.
Dr. Jeannette Allsopp expressed great thanks to the university for the honour that both she and her husband were awarded.