In pursuit of excellence

Last week we spent a great time in New York as an extended family. The occasion? College graduation for my stepdaughter, from Columbia University. For the two days of events we had more than we needed in terms of good weather; in fact, it was too hot on the second day when we had no covered seating. Unlike at Kensington Oval, the seats were free so we could not complain about the cost.

The commencement ceremony for Columbia College had Matthew Fox as its guest speaker. I had never heard of him, but he is apparently a star in a popular TV series called "Lost", and he is a graduate of Columbia from 18 years ago. He listed the speakers from the preceding four years, including Tom McCain in 2006, and wondered if the audience would be skeptical about the current choice. He was witty and said things to which the student could relate, and they seemed to enjoy that.

The ceremony for the whole university on the 2nd day supposedly had 40,000 people! That's more than some Caribbean islands.
Admittedly, the size of Columbia makes it hard to feel intimate with the graduating students, so it's a real pleasure when you manage to greet each other in a sea of waving arms and to rejoin each other afterwards.

We were proud that after that ceremony we could take some photos with the national flags for the student body. My stepdaughter was the only Bahamian in the class, and waved her flag with genuine pride. Pity there were no junkanoo bells and drums to go with that. We saw flags for Barbados, Jamaica, and Dominica (represented by Ivy League 400 metre sprint phenom, Erison Hurtault), but no students came to lay claim to those for their pictures. So, we just have to be proud for them too and their families.

The Caribbean keeps producing brilliant students, unfortunately most of those who graduate live and work outside the region, mostly in the US. We have not figured out how to get them to either go back or to make contributions in the region. Our economies remain too small to stop the brain drain. That's a shame. In the meantime, we have to continue to encourage our children to be good students and great ambassadors: living proof that we value education, wherever we are.