CMU announces key appointments

Chairman of the Council of the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) Professor Gordon Shirley has announced a number of key appointments as the university continues its drive to strengthen its governance framework.

Professor Evan Duggan has been appointed interim president of the CMU with effect from June 1, 2020, while Joy Patricia Harrison has been engaged as treasurer, effective May 8, 2020.

The council, management, and staff of the Caribbean Maritime University take pleasure in welcoming Professor Evan Duggan and Joy Patricia Harrison to the CMU team.

PROFILES

PROFESSOR EVAN DUGGAN, INTERIM PRESIDENT

Professor Evan Duggan is a highly acclaimed international scholar with a solid track record of achievement in academia, research, and leadership spanning four decades. He earned his PhD and MBA degrees in decision sciences and computer information systems from Georgia State University (Atlanta, GA) after obtaining a bachelor of science degree from The University of the West Indies (Mona) in 1974 on an Alcan Scholarship.

During his outstanding career in academia, Professor Duggan has been entrusted with positions of considerable responsibility. He has served with distinction at The University of the West Indies, Mona; the University of Alabama; and the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the United States, holding the positions of assistant professor (1998-2004), associate professor (2004-2006), and professor (2007-2018). He also taught advanced MIS and decision sciences courses to master’s and doctoral students.

At UWI, Mona, Professor Duggan also served as associate dean for research and graduate studies (2007-2008); executive director of the Mona School of Business and Management (2008-2012); dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (2012-2016); and acted in the position of principal on a number of occasions.

During his tenure as executive director of the Mona School of Business (MSB), Professor Duggan guided the school to its achievement of international accreditation from the British body Association of MBAs (AMBA); established a highly successful magazine – T he MSB Business Review; and spearheaded the merger of the MSB and the Department of Management Studies into a single entity – The Mona School of Business and Management (MSBM). He was recently named professor emeritus by The University of the West Indies.

In continuing his illustrious career path, Professor Duggan also recently completed a two-year stint as visiting professor of management information systems in the Department of Management Information Systems & Quantitative Methods at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Business.

Before venturing into academia, the professor, a Jamaican by birth, worked in the area of information technology at Alcan Jamaica Company (Windalco) for over 20 years, attaining the post of information systems department manager. For a brief stint, he was also chief systems analyst at Alcan’s head office in Montreal, Canada, where he led the development of a common information systems project-management methodology for use by the entire organisation.

Also an accomplished researcher and scholarly author, Professor Duggan has published over 60 scholarly papers, including journal articles, and edited publications for major conferences, journals, and scholarly outlets. His book with co-editor Han Reichgelt, Measuring Information Systems Delivery Quality , published by Idea Group Inc, is in the libraries of leading business and engineering schools.

He also served as section editor for the African Journal of Information Systems, associate editor for Communications of the Association for Information Systems, and sits on the editorial advisory boards of several international journals and scholarly publishing companies and book series.

Professor Duggan’s sterling reputation as a scholar and accomplished leader has earned him the respect of major information systems associations and institutes and enabled him to engender collaborative relationships with the business community, government organisations and international scholarly bodies.

In this regard, he has been faculty mentor for the US-based KPMG Information Systems Doctoral Students Association, chairman of the Doctoral Students Affairs Committee for the International Decision Sciences Institute, and faculty advisor at the Doctoral Consortium of the Information Resources Management Association International Conference. He is also on the board of the ICT University, a US-based institution that provides high-quality ICT and human capacity development, specifically targeting Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

Professor Duggan is currently executive chairman of SynCon Technologies Limited, whose board of directors he has chaired since 2006.

 

JOY PATRICIA HARRISON, TREASURER

Joy Patricia Harrison is a qualified chartered accountant of the highest integrity, having more than 40 years of distinguished service in both the public and private sectors.

She has held the position of financial controller for highly successful and reputable companies in the private sector prior to joining The University of the West Indies (UWI) in 1994, where she has spent most of her professional life.

Harrison served as campus bursar at the UWI, St Augustine campus, and prior to that, as deputy university bursar at the UWI – University Centre, Jamaica.

Her responsibilities at the UWI included financial accounting and management and interfacing with the university community, regional governments, and the public.

She is the holder of a master of business administration and a bachelor of science degree in management studies, both from The University of the West Indies. She is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Accountants, United Kingdom, and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (retired) Jamaica.