The University College of the Cayman Islands will launch the first of its Distinguished Public Lecture Series on Thursday, November 29, 6:00pm at the UCCI Sir Vassel Johnson Hall. Headlining this session is Professor Trevor Munroe, one of the Caribbean’s leading public scholars, who will be speaking on the topic, ‘Political Corruption in the Caribbean- Where to from Here?’

Since 2011, Professor Munroe has been Executive Director of Jamaica’s National Integrity Action Limited, a not for profit NGO dedicated to the building of integrity and the combat of corruption in Jamaica on a non-partisan basis. Prior to this he directed the National Integrity Action Forum a coalition of leaders of public sector anti-corruption agencies, a 2-year project launched in 2009 and supported by USAID. In 2012, Professor Munroe was appointed an individual member of Transparency International, the only such person from the Caribbean, one among 27 in the world.

As a scholar, he was promoted to Professor of Government and Politics at the UWI in 1998 and appointed founding Director of the Centre for Leadership and Governance in 2006. He had previously served as Head of the Mona Campus’ Department of Government.

He is the author or co-author of eight (8) books primarily on issues of Caribbean democratic governance. His 1972 book on Jamaican politics remains the authoritative work on Jamaica’s transition to Independence. He has written extensively on issues of corruption and governance, including authoring Transparency International’s National Integrity System country studies of Jamaica, the Caribbean and, most recently, the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Professor Munroe, a Jamaican Rhodes Scholar, who attained his doctorate at Oxford University, after 1st class honours degree at UWI, has received many academic awards, including the UWI Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence, The Mona Campus Principal’s Award for Research, the Honorary Doctorate in Social Sciences from Florida International University THE FIRST FROM THE English-speaking Caribbean and taken up Fulbright Fellowships at Harvard University in the United States. At the secondary level, he was educated at St George’s College where he excelled in academics, debating and track athletics.

He served as a Senator in the Jamaican Parliament between 1998 and 2007, championing integrity building measures and playing an active role on Parliamentary Committees dealing with corruption prevention. For many years, he served on the Executive of Jamaica’s private sector-led Think Tank and as a Director of the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Unions, having himself co-founded the UAWU, one of Jamaica’s major trade unions. Dr Munroe has special expertise in building labour-management partnerships, having played a lead role in forging the accord between the trade unions and the trans-national corporations in the Bauxite Alumina sector in the late 1990s and led the team responsible for building trust amongst sector participants in the Partnership for Transformation chaired in 2011 by Jamaica’s Prime Minister.

Professor Munroe is currently an Honorary Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI, and has served as Consultant to the World Bank, the Organization of American States, the Carter Centre, the United Nations Development Programme, Transparency International, the USAID, the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) amongst other international, regional and national organizations. He is currently a member of the Advisory Group on Global Political Finance established by the International Foundation of Electoral Systems. He was a founding director of Citizens Action for Fair and Free Elections and currently co-host of the morning programme, JAMAICA SPEAKS, on Newstalk 93fm.

He is married to Ingrid, President and CEO of Excel Insurance Brokers, of which he is Chairman. His two children, Tarik and Kinshasa, have Masters Degrees in human resource development. Professor Munroe is also the son of the former Director of Public Prosecutions, Dr. Huntley Munroe, Q.C and his late wife Muriel.

UCCI’s Distinguished Lecture Series is being presented under the patronage of the University Board Chair, Mrs. Berna Cummings, MBE.

The series aims to bring to the Caymanian Public the best thinking and ideas on a range of issues and subject areas affecting the Cayman Islands and the general Caribbean. It is hoped that this will help to form synergistic networks among members of the University College of the Cayman Islands, the wider community, and various organisations and businesses.

It is anticipated that presentations will be penetrating, rigorous, deep, and will present novel interpretations of important issues and themes relevant to the socio-psychology, history, culture, sociality and economics of the Cayman Islands.

The lecture will also serve to kick off preparations for UCCI’s Caribbean Conference slated for March 2014 with the theme, “Towards a Corruption-Free Caribbean: Ethics, Values, and Morality.