The University of the West Indies (UWI) will award fifteen honorary degrees at graduation ceremonies to be held at its three campuses at Cave Hill, Barbados, Mona, Jamaica and St. Augustine in Trinidad and Tobago, later this year.
At the Mona Campus graduation ceremonies, scheduled to be held on November 5 and 6, five eminent persons will receive honorary degrees. Heading the list is Ambassador the Hon Patricia Durrant – a veteran career diplomat and currently, United Nations Ombudsman who has served in the Jamaican Foreign Service for thirty years, from 1971 to 2001. She will be conferred with the Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree. Lawyer/Trade Unionist Richard Hart will also receive the LLD degree. Richard Hart’s long involvement in political and trade union activities went far beyond his native Jamaica to embrace not only the English-speaking West Indian countries but the wider Caribbean region.
Another recipient of the Honorary LLD degree will be Jamaican businessman, the Honourable Karl Hendrickson, who has been Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Mona School of Business since 2003. Until his retirement in the mid 1990s the Hon Karl Hendrickson was Chairman of the National Continental Corporation (NCC) Group of Companies which he had founded.
Jamaican diplomat and UWI graduate, Ambassador Stafford O. Neil will also be conferred with the Doctor of Laws (LLD) degree. Ambassador Neil is a career diplomat, rising to become Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade from 1997-2002. He is currently serving as Jamaica’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. Justice Patrick Robinson, a distinguished graduate of The University of the West Indies, has been a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since November 1998 and is currently President of the Panel. He began his public service in 1968 as Crown Counsel in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions and Legal Advisor in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade.