The Board of the University of the Commonwealth Caribbean (UCC) has announced the award of honorary doctorates to three highly regarded Caribbean professionals with distinguished careers in the fields of accounting/finance, hospitality and tourism/business, and medicine/psychiatry.

Dr Donald Roomes, chairman of the Board of the UCC, said: “The University of the Commonwealth Caribbean will confer Honorary Doctorate Degrees at our graduation on July 17, 2022, to Mr Leighton McKnight CD, Caribbean Regional Advisory Leader of PwC and a Distinguished Lieutenant Governor of Excellence (DLGE) of the Kiwanis movement in Jamaica, for his work in the accounting and the business sectors;  Hon. Godfrey Dyer OJ, tourism and business titan and a Distinguished Governor (DG)  of the Kiwanis Movement in Eastern Canada and the Caribbean, for his exemplary work in the hotel and hospitality sector and Dr Sandra Reid, Deputy Dean for clinical programmes and Senior Lecturer in Psychiatry, Faculty  of Medical Sciences, University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad, for outstanding work and research in the field of Medicine.”

Roomes added: “The Joan Duncan Foundation and the Veronica Campbell Brown Foundation will also receive this year’s Humanitarian Awards in recognition of their outstanding philanthropic work at the commencement ceremony.” 

Professor Dennis Gayle, president of UCC, noted that, since 2012, the institution’s board “has carefully selected some of the most outstanding Caribbean nationals to receive the UCC Honorary Doctorates”.

Gayle added: “We are a higher education institution that respects and celebrates high achievements. This year is particularly significant as our university celebrates two very important milestones; its 30th year in higher education and the 10th year since making these awards. This year’s graduating class of approximately 850 students, the largest to date in the university’s history, will be addressed by Commencement Speaker and Honorary Doctorate recipient, Mr McKnight.”

Describing this year’s Honorary Doctorate recipients as “a stellar trio of talent and accomplishment”, Dr Winston Adams, founder and group executive chairman of the UCC, said: “Our university has had the privilege of recognising some of the region’s most inspirational leaders with honorary doctorates.”

He added: “Through these awards, we have been able to focus attention on truly significant contributions to society and exceptional lifetime achievement in a range of critical fields.” 

UCC Honorary Doctorates have been presented previously over the past decade to Professor Errol Morrison, former president of the University of Technology; Bruce Bowen, former president and CEO, Scotia Bank Group; Dr Henry Lowe, executive chairman, Environmental Health Foundation; Richard Byles, former president and CEO, Sagicor Group; Gary Hendrickson, chairman and CEO, Continental Bakery; Congresswoman Yvette Clarke, Democratic Member of the US House of Representatives; Dorothy Pine McLarty, chair, Electoral Commission of Jamaica; Marlene Street Forrest, managing director, Jamaica Stock Exchange and posthumously to the late Gordon ‘Butch’ Stewart, founder of Sandals Resorts International, the Jamaica Observer and ATL Ltd.