By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

STAGING academic conferences like the 42nd Caribbean Studies Association Conference in the Bahamas would have significant cultural, intellectual and economical benefits for the country, an academic told The Tribune.

Dr Keithley Woolward, an assistant professor of French and director of graduate programmes at the College of The Bahamas, shared his thoughts on the matter after attending the 19th Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) held last week at the Atlantis resort, one of several potential partners being sought for the hosting CSA in 2017.

The Caribbean Studies Association (CSA), founded in 1974, is an independent professional organisation devoted to the promotion of Caribbean studies from a multi- `disciplinary and multicultural point of view.

Its 1,200 plus members have played leading roles in the Caribbean as leaders of governments, administrators in multilateral and bilateral regional organisation and many of its current members serve in senior positions at Caribbean, North American, and European universities.

Dr Woolward, who became vice-president of the CSA in New Orleans last month, will assume the presidency in June 2016 in Port-au Prince, Haiti, at the conclusion of that conference.

“It is the privilege of the president to organise the conference. So we are fortunate that the conference will be coming to the Bahamas in 2017 some 15 years after it was first here in 2002,” he said, adding that the groundwork for the conference will begin this week.

“This allows an opportunity for the College of The Bahamas, where I teach and work, to actually showcase what we’re capable of doing to the wider Caribbean region and certainly to the membership of the Caribbean Studies Association.”

Just last month, COB hosted the Association of Caribbean Historians’ 47th Annual Conference at the British Colonial Hilton Hotel.

COB faculty were also among hundreds of delegates at the CCEM last week where they engaged in discussions that analysed education systems, with a view to executing, monitoring and evaluating action plans over a three-year period.

Education Minister Jerome Fitzgerald, in his remarks at the conclusion of the CCEM, said: “We must find ways to strategically and creatively communicate and transfer that value and appreciation to our citizens.”

“It is therefore imperative that we embark on an aggressive Commonwealth education campaign, that through quality education, we can change the world. We must put action to words.”

“If we are not able to transfer what we have shared and received into practical application that is culturally relevant, needs based and flexible enough to meet the needs of today’s diverse group of learners, our meeting this week would have been in vain,” Mr Fitzgerald said.

Dr Woolward agreed with the sentiments expressed by the minister and emphasised that in the context of the CSA 2017 conference, “it will provide for us ways to think about where and how the work that we do in universities can be connected to larger questions of national development.”

“There are a number of important issues of concern to the Bahamian community. There are questions around education, around gender and gender equality around citizenship and migration, etc. There are a number of members of the CSA who work in these areas and so we want to be able to provide an opportunity for our membership to be able to have an impact in the community whether it’s working with community organisations during the time of the conference or bringing those communities into the conference space so that there can be dialogue exchange.”

Conference organisers also believe the event will boost the country’s economy.

Dr Woolward, along with Dr Craig Smith, founded the annual Critical Caribbean Symposium Series at COB in 2011 to aid in fulfilling the college’s mandate to foster the intellectual development of students and the wider community by encouraging critical analysis and independent thought on local and regional issues.

He also co-chaired CSA’s New Orleans conference, held for the first time in the United States and saw nearly 700 scholars fly in for the conference held at the Hilton Riverside Hotel in Downtown New Orleans.