MANDEVILLE, Manchester — New president of Northern Caribbean University (NCU) Dr Trevor Gardner wants Jamaicans to stop depending on others, and instead find a path to economic independence through education.

Speaking recently during his formal installation at NCU’s main campus in Mandeville, Gardner said Jamaicans and their leaders needed to make a drastic change in the way they relate to others.

“Fifty years after independence, we are still looking to Government for things that we should provide for ourselves; our Governments are still looking to the IMF for bailouts,” he said.

“Economic independence or any other form of independence will only come when we liberate our thinking from dependence on others and take a machete to the tree of dependence. Cut it down. The path to such independent action is found in education,” he added.

Gardner argued for “a transformation in the education system” and an honest, principled stance by the nation’s leaders. “Jamaica needs more elite schools and less elitist [ones] which (make people) think that they are more than others because they go to this or that school. The powers that be must galvanise themselves to put before the people an agenda of discipline, thrift, integrity, moral fortitude, and a willingness to stand for the truth under the most compelling circumstances,” he said.

Gardner, who took office in January, told his audience at NCU’s gymnatorium that his leadership will mean changes for the Seventh-day Adventist-run institution and signalled that he will be pushing for research to serve the “real needs” of the wider population.

“The institution is no more the ‘college on the hill’ as previous generations knew it, and it ought not to be. Changes are inevitable. Each of us in one way or another has been caught in our own revolution of change,” Gardner said.

“As I assume the helm of leadership, you are justly right in expecting changes. We have an education agenda for the world, let us execute it. The history of SDA (Seventh-day Adventist) is one of creating opportunities for (those with) the least among us. Participate in research that answers to real needs of humanity.

“Our tertiary institutions are good, but they are too satisfied with being good. Good makes us comfortable, self-important and puffed up. But he who has the capacity to be great and remains good has squandered an opportunity,” he said.

Included in Gardner’s vision as president of NCU is to have a “pluralistic” student population of some 10,000 students in the next five to seven years — up from what the university’s website says is a current annual enrolment of 5,000 — as well as private partnerships.

Dr E Albert Reece, guest speaker at the event, predicted that the institution’s best days are ahead under Gardner’s leadership.

Reece, vice-president for Medical Affairs and dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, said that as an educator and academic, Gardner has had a keen interest in reducing “brain drain”.

Gardner took up the NCU presidency after a range of academic posts in other countries and his return home, Reece said, was a demonstration of commitment to NCU and Jamaica.

“He has demonstrated that he is someone who not only has great passion for and dedication to education and intellectual curiosity, but also a genuine commitment to this institution, this nation and this region,” Reece said.

The installation ceremony was a grand affair supported by NCU staff, students and alumni, as well as leaders in different capacities from Mandeville, across Jamaica, the Caribbean and abroad.

However, Gardner made it known to the audience that the event was “not about a person, it is about an institution. The person just happens to be asked for a brief period of time to serve the institution”.

Immediate past president of NCU Dr Herbert Thompson, the institution’s longest-serving head, handed over the president’s medallion to Gardner, officially symbolising the change of leadership.

The hand-crafted medallion bears Gardner’s name as 23rd president of NCU, the date of his installation, an image of the university crest, and the inscription of the university’s value statement — Ubi Semper Discimus (Where Learning Never Ends).

Northern Caribbean University started as the West Indian Training School in St Catherine in 1907 and moved to its current site in Manchester in 1919.