A special welcome to all the new and returning students to the Faculty of Sport at the University of the West Indies. You should know that this is a cross-campus Faculty because it consists of five Academies of Sport spread across the five Campuses of the UWI in Mona, Jamaica, Cave Hill, Barbados, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, the Global Campus as well as the new Five Islands Campus in Antigua.

I know that many of you would have been among the millions of fans across the world who viewed the recently concluded World Cup of soccer. The tournament would have raised many issues both on and off the field of play that relate to the field of sport studies and the development of sport on the whole. For instance, these included the astronomical cost of tickets to see the games live, the mixed racial composition of some of the major teams, political interference in the refereeing process, hydration breaks as well as the use of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) and its impact on game outcomes. Put differently, these issues relate directly relate to broader matters or fields that affect the development of sport such as sport economics, sport sociology, national identity, nationalism, governance, sport medicine and technology which drive contemporary sport.

Relatedly, some of these issues overlap with the six broad related functions of the Faculty of Sport. These include notably, (i) knowledge dissemination or teaching (through BSc programmes in coaching, sport kinetics, sport sciences, sport leadership and management, physical literacy); (ii) knowledge generation or research (on sport participation, sport injury, gender inequality etc.); (iii) athlete development; (iv) human capital formation (training of sport coaches, sport management personnel, physical therapists etc); (v) community outreach and (vi) revenue generation.

These functions are central to the core mission of the Faculty which is to take sport “to a higher level across the Caribbean “through the adoption of a more systematic and scientific approach to its organization and development. However, as part of this mission, the Faculty is concerned not just with the development of sport which has focused historically on the production of athletes, results, coaches and facilities etc. but also with the use of “sport for development” or “development through sport.” In relation to the latter, sport is used to help deal with such important issues like conflict, violence, gender (in)equality and non-communicable diseases consistent with global trends. For these reasons, sport has become an important mechanism for achieving some of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in relation to these various issues.

The emergence of sport as an industry in its own right as well as the field of sport studies globally, now offer a wide range of employment possibilities for persons seeking to pursue a career in sport outside of the traditional options of just playing and coaching. It is hoped that this Faculty can help you realize your other career aspirations in this industry and so help us to further the development of sport and its study across the region. I take great pleasure therefore, in welcoming you and wishing you all the best in your endeavours.