Roytec grads told, work with communities

A Canadian university professor told local graduates his university preferred them to become cherished among their people rather than amass personal wealth.

This message came from Dr Daniel Coleman, an expert on business leadership, bringing greetings to the Roytec graduation ceremony last week at UWI, St Augustine on behalf of the University of New Brunswick (UNB), where he is assistant vice-president. Roytec offers several UNB courses.

Congratulating the graduates, Coleman said the UNB ultimately measures its success by their success.

“Rest assured that we do not measure your success solely by how well you do financially. We would rather have many graduates who are well-regarded in their communities who may not have striven only for personal gain than a few graduates who gathered individual wealth and ignored their communities.”

Coleman said the graduates’ educational achievements are the result of their own efforts, yet have also placed them in a privileged position. “It is important that you give back to your communities and country. So that’s the charge. Make us proud of you.” He said UNB graduates number 4,000 in TT and 65,000 globally.

However, Coleman lamented the Government’s recent decision to curb GATE funding to students in transnational programmes such as the UNB’s courses, on offer in TT since 1997. “While we understand to some extent the Government’s decision, we are disappointed that after 20 years of offering high-quality programmes our future students will be disadvantaged.

Please put in a plug for us if you know anybody in Government.”