With the Boundary: Remembering Emeritus Professor Baldwin Mootoo

The UWI Regional Headquarters, Jamaica W.I. Wednesday, May 27, 2026— The following statement is issued by Professor Sir Hilary Beckles, Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (The UWI), in tribute to Emeritus Professor Baldwin Mootoo.

For many moons, Mootoo and I merged and crafted a life of friendship based on mutual respect and trust. We were Pro Vice-Chancellors in The UWI Cabinet under Vice-Chancellor Rex Nettleford. His portfolio was postgraduate studies and research, and mine was undergraduate studies and quality assurance. Building partnership, and forging a culture of collaboration were endemic to our operations.

But it was cricket culture that cemented and concretised our brotherly bond and camaraderie. Wherever in our region, Windies were playing, we wound up. Results mattered, but the liming was legendary. It was a legacy inherited from generations, and rooted, we thought, irretrievably in our civilisation.

Decent to the core, Baldwin was a man of the people—all of them—and cared for young people, especially when he considered them intellectually inquisitive. Possessed of a sharp scientific mind and gentle manner, he projected the identity of the natural scientist with a passion for telling tales about things not generally known.

Yet, his discourses were not bound by the narrow parameters of facts. Instead, he was more stimulated by style, the art of action, and the sweetness of showing.

It was this propensity that drove him inexorably into the Sir Frank Worrell fan club, where he occupied the privileged position of ‘knowing the man’.

He celebrated more than anyone I knew, the performance achievements of the revolutionary captain. He was torn to the soul at his death. In Sir Frank’s passing, he feared the end of an era in which elegance and eloquence were paramount.

This is how we, in turn, will remember our beloved professor. The University family across our archipelago had long embraced him as an icon of our mandate. He taught us how to view our journey from the cane field to academia while always looking to live in peace on the sacred ground soaked with our ancestral blood, indigenous, African and Asian.

We offer condolences to his family and friends. May his soul rest in peace.