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Academic Leader/Historian
Professor Douglas Hall joined the Department of History in 1961 after detours through the Departments of Extra-Mural Studies and of Economics. He was promoted to the chair in History in 1964, becoming the first West Indian at the University of the West Indies to hold the post of professor and head of a department. He served with distinction until his retirementin 1981, and shortly after, he was made an emeritus professor. Between 1963 and 1972 Douglas headed a three-campus department consisting of Mona, Cave Hill and St. Augustine. He was forthright, even-handed and consistent in his dealings with his colleagues and, accordingly, it is most fitting that Professors Keith Laurence and Woodville Marshall, as well as Dr. Kelvin Singh, our colleagues from the Cave Hill and St. Augustine departments, are with us today. My Mona colleagues deeply appreciate their presence, and we regret the unavoidable absence of two of Douglas's long-standing colleagues, Professor Roy Augier, who is indisposed, and Professor Carl Campbell, who is off the island.
Douglas Hall was part of the History "triumvirate", along with Eisa Goveia and Roy Augier, and together they enunciated and guided an academic development programme that transformed history teaching in the University of the West Indies. Commenting on their complementary skills, Woodville Marshall recently wrote: "Goveia's strengths were conceptualization in the best humanist tradition and graceful articulation of ideas. Augier was the verbalizer of the large view, an activist academic in touch with all levels of the academic community and the regional education sector. Hall's ability to create consensus, to synthesize ideas and to tirelessly organize for their implementation made him the superb academic leader." Fiercely loyal to his colleagues, Douglas always acknowledged their contribution to his own achievements. Whenever he was honoured, whether with the Institute of Jamaica's Musgrave Medal, or with an honorary doctorate from the Cave Hill campus, and most recently, the Norman Manley Award for Excellence, Douglas always referred to the collaborative support of his colleagues. He was a "team man", par excellence.
Douglas Hall's commitment to Caribbean regionalism was perhaps best exemplified when, as the head of the three-campus department, he strongly endorsed his colleagues' initiatives that bridged the Caribbean's linguistic divide and led to the, establishment of the Association...