Dear Editor,

The governance and business of sport as well as athletic excellence demand a faculty of expert knowledge, research competencies and technical expertise which not only equips the present generation of sport but prepares effectively and makes fertile the ground upon which future generations will be founded.

My colleague directors of the Jamaica Olympic Association (JOA) and I therefore welcome, with optimism, the advent of the Faculty of Sport of The University of the West Indies. We exhort its first dean, Dr Akshai Mansingh, and his faculty colleagues, to author a text in which sport as an educational tool, a vehicle for self-actualisation, a social instrument of change and transformation, and a commercial enterprise provides an enabling context for economic growth, national development and nationhood.

It is imperative that we encourage scholarship in the study of sport that will massage the intellect, giving muscle to new and improved thinking, proven methodologies and life-changing discoveries. I have no doubt that the faculty will fulfil this mandate admirably.

The JOA pledges its support and looks forward to a partnership as we seek, jointly and with other stakeholders, to construct an educated and a very skilled and viable sport industry.

Christopher L Samuda

President

Jamaica Olympic Association

christopher.samuda@yahoo.com