Guyana’s President David A. Granger will deliver the keynote address next month at the Second Annual International Education Awards Ceremony at the predominantly black Medgar Evers College, City University of New York (CUNY), in Brooklyn.
Tara Regist Tomlinson, the Jamaican director of Development and Alumni Relations at Medgar Evers College, told Caribbean Life on Tuesday that Granger has been invited to speak, at college’s Founders Auditorium on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, on April 27.
Medgar Evers College President Dr. Rudolph F. Crew, a former chancellor of New York City public school system, will also speak at the Awards Ceremony, Regist Tomlinson said.
Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith W. Rowley delivered the keynote address to a standing-room only audience at last year’s inaugural Awards Ceremony.
Granger’s feature remarks will be preceded by a VIP Reception, sponsored by a number of New York businesses, at the college’s Academic Complex I Building on Bedford Avenue.
“It will be an intimate gathering of sponsors and dignitaries, and will last one hour,” Regist Tomlinson said.
She, however, said the Awards Ceremony is free and open to the general public, “and will recognize pillars of the community who have been supportive of the international studies program at Medgar Evers College.”
Regist Tomlinson said funds raised through the VIP Reception will help to “advance the mission of Medgar Evers College.”
Medgar Evers College, located in the heart of the Caribbean community in Brooklyn, was founded as a result of collaborative efforts by community leaders, elected officials, the Chancellor and the Board of Higher Education of CUNY.
The college, which boasts a student population of mostly Caribbean nationals or descendants of Caribbean nationals, is named after the slain American civil rights leader, Medgar Evers.
The college was established in 1969 “with a mandate to meet the educational and social needs of Central Brooklyn.”
“The college is committed to the fulfillment of this mandate,” according to its mission statement.
“In keeping with the philosophy of The City University and Medgar Evers College, we believe that education is the right of all individuals in the pursuit of self-actualization,” the statement said. “Consequently, the college’s mission is to develop and maintain high quality, professional, career oriented undergraduate degree programs in the context of liberal education.”
Medgar Evers College offers programs both at the baccalaureate and at the associate degree levels, “giving close attention to the articulation between the two-year and the four-year programs.”
