Citation read on behalf of Prof Thompson at the Ceremony for the Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence
Professor Alvin O. Thompson
Vice-Chancellor, it is most fitting, in this year of celebration of the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, that we should today be recognizing someone whose Christian life has been a model of service to his fellow man, while his academic life has been dedicated to researching the abomination of African slavery and servitude, with its many layers of cruelty, contradictions and ambiguities.
Our colleague Alvin O. Thompson, now Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy at the Cave Hill Campus of our beloved University of the West Indies, was born in colonial British Guiana on January 24th, 1942. With the name Thompson I have no doubt that his lineage is both Bajan and Guyanese. He won a scholarship to Queen’s College and proceeded in 1962 to the University of the West Indies at Mona, entering as a freshman at the same time I did; but while I was placed in the Hall of Men, Taylor Hall, he had the misfortune to be placed in the jungle of wild beasts, Chancellor Hall, to become a lion, and much later a “Super Lion”!
To his credit, he survived the baptism by fire and beasts in that jungle of lions, and
won a UWI Postgraduate Scholarship to the University of London. He entered the School of Oriental and African Studies in 1965, to pursue his interest in African history.. He had, by this time, met his future wife, Hilda Caisey, a gentle and beautiful Bermudan student nurse at the University Hospital of the West Indies. Exercising the patience of his biblical hero Job, he waited five years until March the 8th, 1969, to tie the matrimonial knot. He returned home that year, as a Lecturer at the University of Guyana, but moved in 1972 to Cave Hill, where his academic career took off.
Alvin threw himself into teaching with a passion, became deeply involved in both church and student life, served on every university committee which asked for his services. Yet he still managed to establish himself as an authority on the slave trade and Caribbean
Slavery, and to edit the Journal of Caribbean History, one of the flagship journals of the University. A steady stream of journal articles and book chapters over 20 years culminated in the last five years in an explosion of impressive books – rather like his explosive finish in the 100 metres, in days of old! One book after another – Unprofitable Servants: Crown Slaves in Berbice, In the Shadow of the Plantation, and Documentary History of Slavery in Berbice all appeared in 2002, to be followed by Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas, the original Spanish version of which won the Prize of Caribbean Thought in the category Political Thought, with a generous prize of 20,000 US dollars, which, translated into Guayanese dollars, made Alvin a multi-millionaire!.
But let no one be deceived by the resulting present prosperous appearance of the Professor. He was once lean and hungry looking, and a star athlete. He was Junior Sprint Champion in Guyana in 1959, Victor Ludorum at QC in 1960, setting a new record for the 100 yards, and Sports personality for QC. At UWI he was 100 yards champion and Victor Ludorum, and Sprint Champion of Jamaica, in 1963. At London University in turn he was London University and British Universities Sprint Champion in the 100 metres, receiving the Arthur Wint Trophy in 1966. His impact on athletics has continued to be quite extraordinary, both through his contribution to the Barbados Track and Field Association, and through the judicious nurturing of his own genes, in the person of his even more famous son of the soil, Olympic medalist Obadele Thompson.
Vice-Chancellor, this is by no means Alvin’s first distinguished award, because he has already collected the inaugural Principal’s Award of Excellence at Cave Hill in 2005, and in the same year was inducted into the Hall of Fame of Chancellor Hall as a Super Lion, with the likes of our several Caribbean Prime Ministers and his fellow historian Professor Emeritus Woodville Marshall … the lions truly roared that night, as they feasted on PJ Patterson roast pork and Kenny Anthony boneless chicken.
And so, Vice-Chancellor, although the concept of a lion with Christian virtues, research accomplishments and teaching skills is beyond belief, that of a lion with explosive speed, courage, creativity and a mighty voice is entirely convincing. I therefore take the greatest pleasure in presenting outstanding researcher and teacher, and upstanding Christian sprinter, Professor Alvin O. Thompson for the Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Research, 2006-2007.
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