Seven new Heads of Department have been appointed at the University of the West Indies Mona Campus for the three year period August 1, 2003 to July 31, 2006.

In the Faculty of Humanities and Education, Senior Lecturer, Dr. Marjan deBruin, has been appointed Director of the Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication. Professor Claudette Fay Durrant is the new head of the Department of Library and Information Studies and Mr. David Williams will assume the headship of the Department of Literatures in English.

Senior Lecturer in the Department of Life Sciences, Dr. Dale Webber, has been appointed head of that department in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences.

In the Faculty of Social Sciences, Professor Stephen Vasciannie has been appointed head of the Department of Government, Dr. Anne Crick will be the new head of the Department of Management Studies and Dr. Ian Boxill takes over as head of the Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work.

Dr. DeBruin has been acting as Director of CARIMAC since August 2002, when longtime Director, Professor Aggrey Brown, was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education.

She has become well known in academic and media circles for her research work on Gender issues in Media and for promoting responsible reporting, particularly on HIV/AIDS and on the environment. She has played a significant role in CARIMAC's outreach programmes, having been responsible for organising seminars for Caribbean journalists and media managers on important questions including responsible reporting on HIV/AIDS and on reporting about the Environment. She has raised more than US $1 million for work of this kind and in 2001 received the Principal’s award as the most successful fundraiser for research in her faculty.

Internationally, Dr. de Bruin is a Vice-President of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) and the Editor of its half-yearly Journal. Her own research has concentrated on issues of importance to the Caribbean particularly Gender Issues, Women and Children's Health, HIV/AIDS and the Environment.

Fay Durrant assumed the positions of Professor and Head of the Department of Library and Information Studies in August 2000. In addition to teaching, she is presently conducting research on telecommunications policies in the Caribbean, the development of telecentres and information and knowledge management as instruments of development in the Caribbean.

Professor Durrant is a member of the ACURIL Executive Council, Co-Chair of the ACURIL XXX11 Local Organising Committee, the Executive Committee of the Library and Information Association of Jamaica (LIAJA) and the board of the Jamaica Sustainable Development Networking Programme.

David Williams is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literatures and English and was educated at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). His teaching and research interests are in African-American, West Indian and Women’s writing, and Cultural Studies. His poetry and critical articles have been published in American, Canadian and Caribbean journals.

Dr. Dale Webber is a coastal ecologist who has extensive experience in the assessment of coastal water quality using phytoplankton and a range of physical and chemical indices. A lecturer at U.W.I. since 1990, Dr. Webber has been involved in the investigation of coastal water qualities since 1987, commencing with the IDRC/UDC funded investigation of water qualities along the Hellshire Coastline. He was the scientific coordinator for the 1992 SENTAR/NWC funded short term investigation of water qualities in Kingston Harbour which later developed into the 1998 UNDP/UNEP/UNOPS funded investigation of the status of the benthos and water quality of Kingston Harbour. This now forms the framework for the government’s management plan for the Kingston Harbour.

Dr. Webber has participated in and led several environmental assessment projects, including the Martha Brae River Estuary project, the Black River Upper Morass Project, and the vegetation components of the environmental impact assessment of the North Coast Highway development project and the South Coast Development Phase One Project. Most recently he has completed research and reports on the impact and amelioration of sediment and agrochemical pollution on Caribbean coastal water project and an assessment of the water quality associated with the conch industry of Pedro Bank.

He has served as Warden of Taylor Hall, Sub-Dean (student matters) in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences and was also Assistant Director of the Centre for Marine Sciences.

An Attorney-at-Law by profession, Professor Vasciannie holds degrees from the University of the West Indies, Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He has developed an outstanding record of distinguished original work in the field of public international law, and his publications have made a significant contribution to knowledge and the understanding of complex issues of substantial practical importance, Professor Vasciannie has also demonstrated his versatility across a range of topics including international economic law, human rights and Jamaican national law, as well as economic and sociological aspects.

He has made a significant contribution to the academic offerings of his department. Professor Vaciannie was responsible for the introduction of Master’s degree courses in the Law and Politics of the Sea and Selected Issues in International Law. He completely revised and restructured undergraduate courses in Principles of Public International Law, International Law and Development, International Political Economy and the University Foundation course on Law, Governance, Economy and Society.

Professor Vasciannie has extensive professional experience and a commendable record of public service.

Dr. Anne Crick joined the Department of Management Studies in 1989 as Lecturer in the field of Organizational Management. She is a certified trainer and has trained in several of Jamaica’s leading companies. She currently serves on the board of the Jamaica Association for Training and Development (JATAD) and is head of their research and development committee. She has published and presented locally, regionally and internationally on aspects of management within the service industry.

Dr. Ian Boxill is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and has won many academic awards, the most recent being the Principal’s award for the project attracting most funds to the Faculty of Social Sciences during 2001-2002. He has published numerous academic papers and books in the areas of culture, development tourism and Caribbean regional integration. He is Associate Editor of the well respected Latin American journal, Revista Mexicana del Caribe, and also founder and Editor of the new social science and humanities academic journal, IDEAZ. He has been Visiting Scholar and Lecturer at the University of Waikato, New Zealand where he helped to restructure a programme in development studies aimed primarily at Maori students. He has also been Visiting Scholar at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji, the James Cook University in Australia, the University of Luton, England and Harvard University, Institute for International Development.

Between 2000-2002, he was Senior Visiting Professor and Principal Researcher on a project which examined the impact of tourism in the Caribbean, involving scholars from the UWI and the University of Quintana Roo, Mexico.

He has also consulted for many international institutions including the World Bank, the IMF, UNCTAD, the Caribbean Development Bank and CARICOM.