The University Council has approved a recommendation to extend the appointment of Professor Eudine Barriteau, as Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the Cave Hill Campus.
Barriteau who has served in this capacity for the past five years has been offered a one-year post-retirement extension to the end of academic year 2020-2021.
In addition to the University Council’s endorsement, overwhelming support for her extension came from across a wide range of stakeholder groups consulted in the decision, including the Campus Council, the campus leadership, faculty, student body, and other colleagues and officials.
The extension of Barriteau’s term of office provides valuable stability in the University’s leadership to facilitate the continued close collaboration with the Government of Barbados in an effort to restore the full funding of Barbadian students at The UWI, a policy designed to rescue the provision of higher education in the country and to secure the future of the Cave Hill Campus. It is recognised that this initiative calls for careful and precise management; which the University and the Government of Barbados have expressed the fullest confidence in Barriteau to so do.
Amid the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting of University Council also approved Barriteau’s added portfolio of responsibility for the social impact of COVID-19 on students and staff. This, in support of the University’s commitment to confronting the dimensions of equity and inclusion implications of the COVID-19 crisis.
A Professor of Gender and Public Policy, distinguished Caribbean scholar and experienced senior University administrator, Barriteau has served in various roles at The UWI for over 30 years. She was the first Head of the Centre for Gender and Development Studies: Nita Barrow Unit for fifteen years. She was also the first woman at The UWI to be appointed Campus Coordinator, School for Graduate Studies and Research, a position she held for four years.
She then became the second woman to be appointed Deputy Principal at the Cave Hill Campus in August 2008, for a six-year tenure. Thereafter, she transitioned to The UWI Open Campus to serve as its second Principal. She held this office for nine months before assuming the Principalship of the Cave Hill Campus in May 2015.
During her tenure as Principal, Barriteau has spearheaded a number of initiatives relevant not only to the Cave Hill Campus, but to the wider regional University system. In 2016, she recommended creating a Faculty of Sport, which The UWI established in July 2017, the first new Faculty to be introduced in 47 years.
Barriteau successfully gained recognition for the Cave Hill Campus in meeting comparability of standards for its Faculty of Medical Sciences, from the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) in October 2016. In 2017, she launched the Smart Campus Initiative, designed to reconceptualise the delivery of higher education goods and services in Barbados and the Caribbean by harnessing Information and Communication Technology to support national and regional development.
In October 2019, The UWI approved the proposal developed by Barriteau for the establishment of a Faculty of Culture, Creative and Performing Arts which comes into effect from August 1, 2020. Under her leadership the Cave Hill Campus secured the maximum seven years of institutional re-accreditation in November 2019, with commendation for its sound leadership, culture of professionalism, and teaching, learning and quality assurance systems.
Barriteau has received a number of national, regional and international awards and recognitions for her outstanding contribution to tertiary education, her pioneering leadership in the development of gender studies and the promotion of gender equality. Among her distinctions are two national awards.
The Order of Grenada Gold Award for Excellence was conferred by her homeland, Grenada, on the occasion of its 42nd Independence anniversary celebrations in February 2016. This was followed by the Order of the Freedom of Barbados—the country’s highest national honour—bestowed on her in November 2019, in celebration of Barbados’ 53rd Anniversary of Independence.
