Be­gin­ning to­day, mem­bers of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ Fac­ul­ty of Sport, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Guardian Me­dia’s Sports Desk, will be­gin a dis­cus­sion on sport­ing mat­ters through­out the cam­pus­es and as they af­fect the re­gion. To­day, Dr Ak­shai Mans­ingh, Dean of the Sport Fac­ul­ty, starts off the con­ver­sa­tion.

On Au­gust 1, 2017, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies es­tab­lished the Fac­ul­ty of Sport, its newest fac­ul­ty in over 40 years, to un­der­score the new think­ing at the in­sti­tu­tion about the im­por­tance of sport and sport stud­ies in the 21st cen­tu­ry. The Vice Chan­cel­lor, Sir Hi­lary Beck­les, pro­claimed that nev­er again should an ath­lete have to choose be­tween aca­d­e­mics and the pur­suit of sport as a pro­fes­sion. The new fac­ul­ty un­der­stands the need for seam­less syn­er­gies be­tween those who play sport and those who play at sport.

The Fac­ul­ty of Sport is unique with­in The UWI struc­ture. It is a cross-cam­pus fac­ul­ty, with a sin­gle dean who is an­swer­able to each cam­pus Prin­ci­pal and the Vice Chan­cel­lor. The fac­ul­ty is rep­re­sent­ed on each of its four cam­pus­es by an Acad­e­my of Sport un­der a head. Its ar­eas of fo­cus are Aca­d­e­mics and Re­search, Sport­ing Ac­tiv­i­ties and Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach and Sport and Ex­er­cise Med­i­cine.

Read More