Editorial | Honouring Augier, Sangster

Two seminal figures in Jamaican and Caribbean education died last week – Roy Augier and Alfred Sangster – leaving legacies that should be marked and perpetuated by their institutions and regional governments.

In Professor Augier’s case, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should posthumously appoint him to membership of the Order of CARICOM, an award given to Caribbean nationals “whose legacy in the economic, political, social and cultural metamorphoses of Caribbean society is phenomenal”.

We believe that Professor Augier, who was born in St Lucia, but lived most of his life in Jamaica, met all the criteria for the award. He was 100 at the time of his death, having celebrated his birthday last December.

The Jamaican Government should find a way to honour Dr Sangster in a way that obviously and appropriately sustains his connection with the University of Technology, Jamaica (UTech), which he led for nearly three decades, first as the College of Arts Science and Technology (CAST), through to its transition of UTech, a full-fledged, degree-granting institution.

However else Dr Sangster is remembered, UTech would contribute to the effort by accelerating its move back to its core as the polytechnic institution it was intended to be, before its more recent flirtation with being a liberal arts university, offering a wide range of disciplines, including marketing, mass communication and law.

WELL KNOWN TO GENERATIONS

Professor Augier was known to generations of West Indian history students either at the Mona campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI) – where they directly encountered his dry wit, his capacity to the core of complex issues, and his admonition against trying to be “Lieutenant Columbo” in attempting to solve problems – or in classrooms across the region through the groundbreaking textbook, The Making of the West Indies, which he authored with three other writers – S.C. Gordon, D.G. Hall and M. Reckord. When The Making of the West Indies was published three-quarters of a century ago, there was no other history text that addressed the history of the region from a clearly Caribbean perspective.

Indeed, the opening paragraph of the book underlines its groundbreaking achievement. It says: “This book has four authors. The reason for this will probably be the best way of illustrating the difficulties of writing West Indian history at this time. Two of the authors west to school in the West Indies and two in England, yet we all did the same courses of history. That is, we were all more familiar with the chain of events that make up the political history of England than what will come to be West Indian history. Since our school days we have all made special studies of small parts of West Indian history, and we have now pooled our knowledge to make a continuous story.”

For that path-breaking effort only, Professor Augier would have deserved the region’s honour. But then there is his work in establishing the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the regional examination body, which he subsequently chaired for a decade. That would have cemented his membership in the Order of CARICOM.

Dr Sangster, a scientist, became principal of CAST in 1970, a dozen years after its launch as a technically centred training institution. Over the next two-and-half decades his hard work and vision helped to lift CAST to being a highly respected entity that attracted students not only from Jamaica, but elsewhere in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Similarly, he was at the helm in the latter part of the 1990s when CAST transitioned to UTech, with the aim, as its name suggests, of providing Jamaicans with high levels of technology-related education and training.

Keeping Dr Sangster’s name alive is important. But his memory should also be honoured by keeping UTech true to its mission.