The Most Reverend, the Right Honourable Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York, is to be conferred with the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Laws at a Special Convocation to be held in the Assembly Hall at the Mona Campus on Saturday, October 6, 2007 beginning at 10:00 a.m.

The Most Rev. Archbishop will be the guest of the Anglican Diocese and the Nation of Jamaica from October 5 to 12, 2007 for the commemoration of the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. Archbishop Sentamu was born in Uganda and served there as a High Court Judge before migrating to England in 1974 and becoming, in 1979, a Priest. He is the second highest ranking Prelate in the worldwide Anglican Communion (after the Archbishop of Canterbury) and holds the title ‘Primate of England’ – the first black person to hold such a position. He is also a member of the House of Lords and a Privy Councillor.

Dr Sentamu’s rise through the ranks of the Church of England included stints as a curate (of St Paul’s Church at Herne Hill in South London, from 1982-1983); as Priest-in-Charge at Holy Trinity, Tulse Hill from 1983-84; as Vicar of the Joint Benefice of Holy Trinity and St Matthias, from 1984-1986 and again as Priest-in-Charge of St Saviour, Brixton Hill. He was first appointed Bishop for Stephney in 1996 (considered a suffragan bishop in the Diocese of London), Bishop for Birmingham in 2002 and Archbishop of York in 2005. Dr Sentamu is sought after as an adjudicator. He served as advisor to the Stephen Lawrence Judicial Enquiry over the period 1997-1999 and in 2002 chaired the Damilola Taylor Murder Review. Between 2002 and 2004 he was Chairman of the EC1 New Deal, served as President of Youth for Christ in 2004 and President of the YMCA in 2005.

Special Convocations are a rarity at the UWI. Among the prominent persons honoured in recent times at Special Convocations have been Desmond Tutu (1986), Nelson Mandela (1991), Colin Powell (1994), Harry Belafonte (1996) and Kofi Annan (1998).

The Mona Campus of the University of the West Indies will close at 12:30 p.m. on Monday September 3, 2007 in order to allow employees the statutory time-off to vote in the General Elections (three hours, in
addition to the luncheon period) and to get home before the polls close.

In order to facilitate students from rural Jamaica who wish to return home to vote, all classes scheduled for September 3, 2007 will be cancelled. Teaching for Semester 1 will therefore begin on Tuesday
September 4, 2007.

Please note that activities other than teaching will continue in the normal way on September 3 until the general closure of the campus at 12:30 p.m.