Densil Williams leads race for UWI Mona principal, claims insider
Published:Sunday | April 23, 2023 | 1:52 AMJovan Johnson - Senior Staff Reporter
Professor of international business and a senior administrator at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Densil Williams, has been recommended to take over as principal of the financially troubled Mona campus in Jamaica, The Sunday Gleaner has learnt.
However, the final decision rests with the University Council, the highest decision-making body of the 75-year-old regional institution, which will consider Vice-Chancellor Sir Hilary Beckles' recommendation at a meeting on Wednesday.
Under Statute 10, the university's law which governs the appointment of principals, the principal “shall be appointed by the council on the recommendation of the vice-chancellor”.
Williams, who is the current principal of the four-year-old Five Islands Campus in Antigua and Barbuda, is among four candidates shortlisted to lead the oldest of The UWI's five campuses.
The others are climate scientist Professor Michael Taylor, dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology; and Professor Lloyd Waller, the executive director of the Global Tourism Resilience and Crisis Management Centre – all at Mona; and Professor Agnis Stibe. Little is known about Stibe.
Taylor, Williams and Waller declined to speak to The Sunday Gleaner on the matter. Stibe could not be reached.
NO COMMENT
The university has also said it could not comment on the selection, saying it “first has a responsibility to protect the confidentiality and integrity of the appointment process which is still ongoing”.
“As is customary, once the process is completed, and an appointment is made, an official statement will be issued,” said Dr Rhonda Jaipaul-O'Garro, university director of marketing and communications, in a statement to this newspaper on April 14.
The panel that interviewed the candidates voted “overwhelmingly” on April 13 in favour of Williams, a highly placed Sunday Gleaner source said.
Williams reportedly received at least eight votes, followed by Waller who got two and one going to Taylor.
The panel comprises at least 11 persons. They included vice-chancellor Beckles; the university's registrar and bursar; the campus principals; the Mona guild of students' president; the union The West Indies Group of University Teachers for Mona, and Jamaica's Education Minister Fayval Williams.
The minister reportedly voted for Waller; however, she has not confirmed nor responded to questions from The Sunday Gleaner, which included whether Jamaica would press for a review of the decision.
The results of a psychometric test also put Densil Williams out front, showing that he satisfied 87 per cent of the established criteria for the post. Stibe was second at 73 per cent; Taylor third at 69 per cent, with Waller completing the quartet at 67 per cent, which the source shared with The Sunday Gleaner.
The new principal will replace Professor Dale Webber, who is stepping down come July 31, after five years, during which he said his mission was “to stabilise and consolidate” activities on the indebted campus.
“The campus had made a number of overtures into a number of places to grow, to respond and I just get the solid feeling that we had overextended ourselves,” Webber said in response to Sunday Gleaner questions at the campus council meeting on March 3.
“My mission was to reduce the debt; I think we saw that today. My mission was to consolidate what the campus had done into an opportunity for students to get the best possible return on the investments that we had done … to take the campus back to a place where we all were working on a common goal and felt comfortable with the outputs and outcomes … I think in the five years, I've done that,” he argued.
PROBLEMS FOR SUCCESSOR
Webber's admission, a veiled criticism of the leadership before him, captures some of the problems that will face his successor come August 1.
Just last week, news emerged that the campus has been forced to cut back on security after falling into arrears with service provider Guardsman Group Limited.
The regional institution owed the security company some $160 million but has been working out a payment arrangement, a source said.
In an update on the campus finances for the 2021-2022 period in March, Webber noted that income generation continues to be difficult when regional governments (40 per cent) and student fees (about 16 per cent) are taken out of the equation.
“Together they are just over 50 per cent of our income, which means the campus has a 45 per cent shortfall that it needs to find a way to close. And that's been our problem for a number of years,” he said.
Several major projects, including commercial deals to expand student housing and a digitisation effort involving the University Hospital of the West Indies, have been seen as a drag on the institution's finances.
The last five years have seen improvements in some areas. In 2018, the campus recorded a comprehensive loss of $1.2 billion, a figure which climbed to $3.4 billion in 2019.
Then in 2021, for the first time in six years, the campus recorded a positive comprehensive income of $467 million. However, operational loss for the period was $1.3 billion.
For 2022, a positive income was also reported at $1.5 billion before depreciation and post-employment benefits are deducted.
“We clearly are turning the ship in the right direction,” said Webber, before acknowledging that Mona's operational loss for 2022 was $287 million, 79 per cent less than the amount for 2021.
It is also the third consecutive year that the Mona campus was able to reduce its deficit.
The campus has an accumulated deficit, which stretches back to 2012, of around $8 billion.
Webber credited spending cuts, closure of several subsidiary companies and joint venture for the improved financial conditions.
Beckles and chairman of the Mona Campus Council commended Webber.
“The Mona Campus has had to endure some difficult financial and fiscal environments. This has been the norm for the past couple of years. The principal and his team have done a very good job in managing these operations,” Beckles said.