UWI mourns its first PhD, Professor Baldwin Mootoo

The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) is mourn­ing the pass­ing of Emer­i­tus Pro­fes­sor Bald­win Mootoo, a pi­o­neer­ing aca­d­e­m­ic whose ca­reer was deeply wo­ven in­to the in­sti­tu­tion’s his­to­ry and growth.

Mootoo’s jour­ney with UWI be­gan in 1956 when he en­rolled at the Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege of the West In­dies in Mona, Ja­maica. That same year, he achieved a mile­stone by be­com­ing the first re­cip­i­ent of a PhD from the new­ly in­de­pen­dent UWI, mark­ing a defin­ing mo­ment in the uni­ver­si­ty’s tran­si­tion from its af­fil­i­a­tion with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Lon­don.

In 1971, Mootoo joined the De­part­ment of Chem­istry at the St. Au­gus­tine cam­pus. Over the next 25 years, he held sev­er­al lead­er­ship roles, in­clud­ing Head of De­part­ment, Cam­pus Dean of the Fac­ul­ty of Nat­ur­al Sci­ences, Pro Vice-Chan­cel­lor for Re­search, and Deputy Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal. His tenure co­in­cid­ed with the ex­pan­sion of UWI in­to a re­gion­al in­sti­tu­tion with mul­ti­ple cam­pus­es, and he played a cen­tral role in ad­vanc­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive re­search in nat­ur­al prod­ucts chem­istry across the Caribbean and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Vice-Chan­cel­lor Pro­fes­sor Sir Hi­lary Beck­les re­flect­ed on Mootoo’s im­pact, de­scrib­ing him as “a re­mark­able col­league and com­rade.” Beck­les re­called their shared com­mit­ment to aca­d­e­m­ic dis­ci­plines and their bond over crick­et, not­ing that their time to­geth­er was “like a pre­cious gift from above.”

Act­ing Cam­pus Prin­ci­pal Pro­fes­sor Derek Chadee em­pha­sized Mootoo’s en­dur­ing in­flu­ence, stat­ing that “the thou­sands of stu­dents, the re­searchers with whom he in­ter­act­ed glob­al­ly, and oth­ers who con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit from his pub­lished body of work – we all owe him an im­mea­sur­able debt.” Chadee added that it was fit­ting for Mootoo to have his fi­nal rest­ing place in the UWI ceme­tery at St. Au­gus­tine.

Mootoo re­tired in 1996 and was con­ferred the ti­tle of Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus in 2000. His lega­cy re­mains a tes­ta­ment to his loy­al­ty, pas­sion, and ded­i­ca­tion to shap­ing the fu­ture of Caribbean ed­u­ca­tion and re­search.

The UWI com­mu­ni­ty has ex­tend­ed its deep­est con­do­lences to Mootoo’s fam­i­ly and friends, hon­or­ing the life of a schol­ar who em­bod­ied the spir­it of the uni­ver­si­ty.