The Rotary Club of St Andrew presented Sir Hilary Beckles, the Vice Chancellor of the University of the West Indies (UWI) with the esteemed Orville Walker Vocational Service Award on Tuesday (January 31) for his professional achievements and leadership in higher education for more than a decade.

Robert Drummond, the Past President of the Rotary Club of St Andrew who was speaking at a luncheon held by the club on at Terra Nova commended the Vice Chancellor for his many academic accomplishments and leadership expertise.

“Sir Hilary you have practiced your profession with integrity and has inspired others today ethically through your words and deeds so in recognition of your record of commitment and high achievements the rotary club of St Andrew take pleasure in presenting you with the Orville Walker Vocational Service Award,” he stated.

Nicole Gordon, the President of the Rotary Club of St Andrew also noted that: “the Orville Walker Vocational Service Award is reserved for someone who has displayed dedicated service in a vocation over an extended period of time in an exemplary manner and which service has generally contributed to our peoples’ quality of life.”

She further said: “the Orville Walker Vocational Service Award recognizes someone whose personal life may be regarded as a model to our vulnerable and impressionable young people and who has displayed the high ethical standards which characterize Rotarians”.

Professor Beckles was also named as a ‘ Paul Harris Fellow’ in August 2020 by the Rotary Foundation for his contribution to social justice as a thought leader in the field of social justice and minority.

In his statement, Beckles expressed his gratitude to the Rotary club for gifting him with the award and noted that the efforts of the club are needed to achieve a more sophisticated society.

“I wish to thank all of you for the generosity of this endowment, it is an endowment to be associated with the efforts of this association. I am grateful and I am appreciative, I have long given support of the culture of volunteerism, our service societies such as the rotary. I wish you all the very best in the decades ahead because we will need you as we try to make our society more sophisticated, more eloquent, just and free, ” he said.

Sir Hilary Beckles has served as the Vice Chancellor of The UWI since 2015. Prior to that he served as Professor of Economic History, Principal and Pro Vice-Chancellor of The UWI’s Cave Hill Campus, Barbados for thirteen years between 2002 to 2015.