University of Guyana
Encyclopedia
The University of Guyana, in Georgetown
, Guyana
is a public university established in 1963 by the Guyanese government.
, then Premier of British Guiana
considered that the University of the West Indies
, to which his government had contributed since 1948, was not meeting the demand of his countrymen for higher education. On January 4, 1962, Jagan wrote to Harold Drayton, then in Ghana
, to ask him to seek the advice of W.E.B. DuBois on starting a new university..
Drayton returned to British Guiana in December 1962, and it was on his advice that Jagan wrote to socialist scholars in the United Kingdom
and United States
, including Joan Robinson
at the University of Cambridge
, Paul Baran
at Stanford University
, and Lancelot Hogben
at Birmingham to involve them in the recruitment of staff..
The University opened on the grounds of Queen's College
in late 1963. Its first chancellor was Edgar Mortimer Duke and its first Principal and Vice-Chancellor was the British biologist and mathematician, Lancelot Hogben
.
It also contains the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education.
Georgetown, Guyana
Georgetown, estimated population 239,227 , is the capital and largest city of Guyana, located in the Demerara-Mahaica region. It is situated on the Atlantic Ocean coast at the mouth of the Demerara River and it was nicknamed 'Garden City of the Caribbean.' Georgetown is located at . The city serves...
, Guyana
Guyana
Guyana , officially the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, previously the colony of British Guiana, is a sovereign state on the northern coast of South America that is culturally part of the Anglophone Caribbean. Guyana was a former colony of the Dutch and of the British...
is a public university established in 1963 by the Guyanese government.
History
Cheddi JaganCheddi Jagan
Cheddi Berret Jagan was a Guyanese politician who was first elected Chief Minister in 1953 and later Premier of British Guiana from 1961 to 1964, prior to independence. He later served as President of Guyana from 1992 to 1997.- Biography :The son of ethnic Indian sugar plantation workers, Jagan...
, then Premier of British Guiana
British Guiana
British Guiana was the name of the British colony on the northern coast of South America, now the independent nation of Guyana.The area was originally settled by the Dutch at the start of the 17th century as the colonies of Essequibo, Demerara, and Berbice...
considered that the University of the West Indies
University of the West Indies
The University of the West Indies , is an autonomous regional institution supported by and serving 17 English-speaking countries and territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Dominica,...
, to which his government had contributed since 1948, was not meeting the demand of his countrymen for higher education. On January 4, 1962, Jagan wrote to Harold Drayton, then in Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, to ask him to seek the advice of W.E.B. DuBois on starting a new university..
Drayton returned to British Guiana in December 1962, and it was on his advice that Jagan wrote to socialist scholars in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, including Joan Robinson
Joan Robinson
Joan Violet Robinson FBA was a post-Keynesian economist who was well known for her knowledge of monetary economics and wide-ranging contributions to economic theory...
at the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, Paul Baran
Paul Baran
Paul Baran was a Polish American engineer who was a pioneer in the development of computer networks.He invented packet switching techniques, and went on to start several companies and develop other technologies that are an essential part of the Internet and other modern digital...
at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, and Lancelot Hogben
Lancelot Hogben
Lancelot Thomas Hogben FRS was a versatile British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He is best known for developing Xenopus laevis as a model organism for biological research in his early career, attacking the eugenics movement in the middle of his career, and popularising books on...
at Birmingham to involve them in the recruitment of staff..
The University opened on the grounds of Queen's College
Queen's College, Guyana
Queen's College is the top secondary school in Guyana;Situated at the South-Easterly Junction of Camp Street and Thomas Lands. Alumni can enter the school through the National Grade Six Assessment and at the Lower 6th Form Level if the academic performance of the student at the Caribbean Secondary...
in late 1963. Its first chancellor was Edgar Mortimer Duke and its first Principal and Vice-Chancellor was the British biologist and mathematician, Lancelot Hogben
Lancelot Hogben
Lancelot Thomas Hogben FRS was a versatile British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He is best known for developing Xenopus laevis as a model organism for biological research in his early career, attacking the eugenics movement in the middle of his career, and popularising books on...
.
Organisation and structure
The university is divided into a number of faculties:- Faculty of Arts
- Faculty of Natural Sciences
- Faculty of Social Sciences
- Faculty of Education and Humanities
- Faculty of Health Sciences
- Faculty of Technology
- Institute of Distance and Continuing Education
- Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry
It also contains the Institute of Distance and Continuing Education.
Alumni
- Mahadai DasMahadai DasMahadai Das was a Guyanese poet. She was born in Eccles, East Bank Demerara, Guyana in 1954. She wrote poetry from her early school days at Bishop's High School, Georgetown. She did her first degree at the University of Guyana and received her B.A. in philosophy at Columbia University, New York,...
, Guyanese writer - M. Jamal Deen, FRSC FCAE FINAE, Professor and Senior Canada Research Chair, McMaster UniversityMcMaster UniversityMcMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
, CanadaCanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean... - Odeen IshmaelOdeen IshmaelOdeen Ishmael is a Guyanese diplomat. He is the current Guyanese Ambassador to Kuwait, having been appointed to that post in January 2011. He also served as ambassador to Venezuela and to the United States and as Permanent Representative to the Organization of American States...
, Guyanese ambassador VenezuelaVenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, formerly to the United StatesUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and the Organization of American StatesOrganization of American StatesThe Organization of American States is a regional international organization, headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States... - Denis WilliamsDenis WilliamsDenis Williams was a Guyanese painter, author and archaeologist.Williams' early promise as a painter won him a two-year British Council Scholarship to the Camberwell School of Art in London in 1946. He lived in London for the next ten years, during which he taught fine art and held several one-man...
, Guyanese painter and archaeologist
Faculty and administrators
- Joyce Sparer AdlerJoyce Sparer AdlerJoyce Sparer Adler was an American critic, playwright, and teacher. She was a founding member of the faculty of the University of Guyana, writer of important critical analyses of Wilson Harris and Herman Melville, and 1988 president of the Melville Society.-Biography:Joyce Sparer Adler was born in...
, American critic, playwright, and teacher, as well as a founding faculty of the University in 1963 - Joel Benjamin, former deputy Librarian and archivist at the University
- Derek BickertonDerek BickertonDerek Bickerton is a linguist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Hawaii, Manoa. Based on his work in creole languages in Guyana and Hawaii, he has proposed that the features of creole languages provide powerful insights into the development of language both by individuals and as a...
, former lecturer, now Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at University of Hawai'i, HonoluluHonolulu Community CollegeHonolulu Community College is a public, co-educational commuter college in Honolulu, Hawaii.The campus is located at 874 Dillingham Bloulevard, north of downtown Honolulu between Honolulu harbor and the neighborhood of Kapālama, at .... - Janette Bulkan, Guyanese professor and activist of international environmental human rights; visiting professor at Colby College
- Harold Drayton, key advisor to Jagan on the founding of the university, Guyanese scientist, former Deputy-Principal and Professor of Biology
- Michael GilkesMichael Gilkes (writer)Michael Gilkes is a Caribbean critic, dramatist, filmmaker and university lecturer. He has been involved in theater for over 40 years...
, Guyanese writer and academic - Stanley GreavesStanley GreavesStanley Greaves is a painter and writer who was born in a "tenement yard" on Carmichael Street, Georgetown, Guyana. He studied Art in Guyana with Edward Burrowes in the Working Peoples' Art Class, 1948-61. Attended University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK 1963-68 did painting, majoring in...
, Guyanese painter, former head of Creative Arts at the University - Richard Hart, Jamaican lawyer and politician
- Lancelot HogbenLancelot HogbenLancelot Thomas Hogben FRS was a versatile British experimental zoologist and medical statistician. He is best known for developing Xenopus laevis as a model organism for biological research in his early career, attacking the eugenics movement in the middle of his career, and popularising books on...
, English zoologist and geneticist - Abdur Rahman Slade HopkinsonAbdur Rahman Slade HopkinsonSlade Hopkinson is a writer who was born into a middle class family in New Amsterdam, Guyana in 1934.His father was a barrister-at-law, and his mother a nurse. A few years after the death of his father, his mother took Slade & his sister to live in Barbados where he attended Harrison College...
, Guyanese writer and professor at the University (1966-1968) - Basdeo Mangru, Guyanese historian; current faculty of City University of New York, YorkYork College, City University of New YorkYork College of The City University of New York is one of eleven senior colleges in the City University of New York system. It is located in Jamaica, Queens in New York City...
- Ali MazruiAli MazruiAli Al'amin Mazrui is an academic and political writer on African and Islamic studies and North-South relations. He is an Albert Schweitzer Professor in the Humanities and the Director of the Institute of Global Cultural Studies at Binghamton University in Binghamton, New York.-Education:Mazrui...
, African and Islamic studies academic - Dr Mark Pelling, Reader in Human Geography, King's College, London
- Clem SeecharanClem SeecharanClem Seecharan, BA, MA, PhD is a writer historian of the Indo-Caribbean experience, who was born in Guyana, and grew up in East Berbice-Corentyne. He obtained his doctorate at the University of Warwick, and taught the University of Guyana for some years...
, Guyanese writer - Bertrand RamcharanBertrand RamcharanDr. Bertrand G. Ramcharan, from Guyana, a former United Nations official who once held functional diplomatic status, was elected in January 2011 President of UPR Info, an non-governmental organisation based in Geneva working to promote and strengthen the Universal Periodic Review...
, current Channcellor of the University - Shridath RamphalShridath RamphalSir Shridath Surendranath "Sonny" Ramphal, GCMG, AC, ONZ, OE, OM, QC, FRSA served as the second Commonwealth Secretary-General from 1975-1990. Ramphal previously served as the Foreign Minister of Guyana from 1972-1975...
, former Guyanese foreign minister (1972-1975) and the second Commonwealth Secreteary General (1975-1990) - Walter RodneyWalter RodneyWalter Rodney was a prominent Guyanese historian and political activist, who was assassinated in Guyana in 1980.-Career:...
, Pan-African writer and political theorist - Rupert RoopnaraineRupert RoopnaraineRupert Roopnaraine was born on 31 January 1943 in Kitty, Georgetown, Guyana. He won a scholarship to Queen's College in 1954 where he excelled in cricket, where he captained the team and represented Demerara in the Inter-county Cricket Finals. In 1962 he was awarded a Guyana scholarship to attend...
, Guyanese writer, politician and academic - Dr Joycelyn Loncke, Guyanese Linguist, teacher of French Language.
External links
- University of Guyana official website
- Institute of Distance and Continuing Education Official Website
- Establishment of the University of Guyana (guyana.org)
- The Mittelholzer Foundation