I am pleased to welcome you to the Barbados Community College, an institution, which does its utmost to uphold positive values. This warm, caring nurturing institution tries to look after the total well being of each student. I welcome you to an institution that:

• Values honesty and encourages its members to be honest in all their dealings.
• Expects students and staff to put in optimum effort in the performance of all their duties.
• Places high regard on aesthetics and expects its members to take special care of the environment.
• Encourage staff to put in the extra effort to ensure that students’ needs are met.
• Expects its members to adhere to the rules and regulations by which it is governed.
• Imposes the maximum penalty on anyone who engages in academic dishonesty or violates any of the College’s rules.

I welcome you here to a place of intellectual, social and spiritual development, which would inculcate in you the ability to comprehend, analyse, synthesise and evaluate. This institution will help you to be able to examine the events, issues and fads all around you in order for you to reach informed and well-reasoned decisions that you can defend with logical arguments. There will be opportunities for you to practise your critical thinking skills and engage staff at all levels in debate. Make sure that you are properly prepared for these encounters by reading a variety of books, magazines and journals and by conducting research to strengthen your arguments. Remember debates are seldom won by mere passion and emotion, they require the weight of logic and evidence.

My colleagues and I are always pleased to interact with you. You will find that we are accessible, even though it may sometimes be necessary to make an appointment to see us. We try to make ourselves available at times that are convenient to you. I trust that you will be comfortable at BCC, your home for the next two years. To ensure that comfort, you must assist us to keep the surroundings clean and to minimise the structural damage.

I just wish to mention two concepts that are very topical: scholarship and lifelong learning.

Scholarship has more than one definition. The one that we have been hearing a lot about recently is a grant or financial aid awarded to a student, as for the purpose of attending a college. However, I would prefer for us to think about scholarship as
the knowledge, methods, discipline and attainment of a scholar or scholars, that is, knowledge resulting from study and research in a particular field. I don’t expect all of you to get a scholarship at the completion of your studies here, but I
expect each of you to leave here with scholarship.

Lifelong learning refers to the process of continuous acquisition of new knowledge to enable persons to continue to perform well in the job, adjust to the changes in the job, get promotion, change careers and respond to the changes in life generally.

We are all on the journey of lifelong learning. Consequently, we must make a conscious effort to learn how to learn. We must not rely on our tutors to teach us everything; we have to learn how to acquire knowledge on our own. Our major
task is to help you to get on that path and stay on the path of lifelong learning.

I wish you an exciting and rewarding tenure at BCC.

Gladstone A. Best