Prime Minister Dr. the Hon Keith Rowley and Mrs. Sharon Rowley attended the 70th Anniversary of the UWI Seismic Research Centre, at The UWI St Augustine Campus on Wednesday 21 June.
Dr. Rowley was celebrated as the First Caribbean-born, UWI-trained scientist to be appointed Head of the Seismic Research Centre.
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In his feature address under the theme ‘Honouring Legacies & Fostering the Future’, Prime Minister Rowley said, “The history of the agency is rooted in applied science, with the function being to provide a seismological and volcanological service to the English-speaking Eastern Caribbean, by keeping the governments advised about all matters relating to seismic and volcanic hazards. In that regard, for decades the SRC has practised operational volcano and earthquake forecasting using both conventional strategies and techniques developed in-house.”
Congratulating the UWI’s Seismic Research Centre on the milestone achieved, Dr Rowley said, “This is a legacy not only to be cherished by those directly involved but to be nourished by every student who enters and claims UWI as alma mater. It also should be a beacon and an imprimatur for every lecturer and researcher in every single Department, with a motto that says Oriens Occidente, that light shining in the west. We are all rays in that great beam. Let us all endeavour to keep shining.”
The Prime Minister went on to say, “There are still hundreds of areas of stimulating research to be explored and published, and such publications and edification stimulated by collection and analysis of data in every field can do wonders for decision-making at every level of the society, from Government to small entrepreneurs.”
“Those fields range from construction to diet, from land use to pollution levels and even from aging to introduction of species.”
He continued: “A university that has its pedigree in the great work done in research as the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture cannot be satisfied with professional or senior staff CVs dominated by columns, inches of questionable opinionated expressions in the local daily or Sunday papers.”
President of the Senate, Senator the Hon. Nigel de Freitas, Minister of Education, Dr. the Hon. Nyan Gadsby-Dolly, Minister in the Ministry of Education, the Hon. Lisa Morris-Julian, Minister of National Security, the Hon. Fitzgerald Hinds, Minister of Social Development and Family Services, Senator the Hon. Donna Cox, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal for the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies, Professor Rose-Marie Belle Antoine and Chancellor, The University of the West Indies, Mr Robert Bermudez were among the specially invited guests in attendance.
