On July 31, Professor Aiyejina left the post of Head of the St Augustine Academy of Sport. He was its first head, taking up the position in 2018. At the end of his first year at the helm, The UWI Vice-Chancellor’s report to the University Council for 2018/2019 said Aiyejina’s institutional knowledge “has assisted immensely in shaping the structure of that academy”.

Professor Aiyejina was a senior administrator at UWI St Augustine for many years until his retirement in 2014 as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Education. With no background in sport, he approached his role at the St Augustine Academy of Sport as an organisational leader.

“I am just a sport enthusiast,” says Professor Aiyejina. “I cannot qualify for the last 11 in my family of four! Luckily, my job as the Head of the Academy of Sport was, in the main, to administer the Academy on a day-to-day basis, walk the programmes (designed by subject matter specialists) through campus and university approval processes, coordinate academic and outreach activities, represent the Faculty of Sport on campus committees, and design an administrative structure to take the academy forward.”

Though the inherent challenges of establishing a brand new academy for a new faculty was compounded by the destablising effects of the pandemic, he is extremely positive about the experience: “The experience has been wonderful. The staff at the academy, from cleaners through grounds men to administrative and technical assistants, are very dedicated and they work well under pressure, as was demonstrated when we part-hosted the CPL T20 Tournament in 2020.

They reaffirmed my core belief that once you treat people as people, they will treat you as a person in return.”

Now that the foundation has been secured, what are Professor Aiyejina’s hopes for the Faculty of Sport and sport in general for the region?

“The Faculty of Sport has staff and affiliates who are committed to teaching, research and outreach for the development of the Caribbean,” he says. “The leadership of the Faculty is progressive, passionate, and humane. The Faculty’s policy of cross-campus teaching affirms the need to, no matter their home campus, give our graduates a global UWI experience. The quantum of articles on Sport and COVID-19 in Sport Matters underscores the interventionist, public intellectualist ideology of the Faculty and a clear rejection of an ivory tower mentality.”