Edna Manley gets new board

Karl Samuda, minister without portfolio with responsibility for education, youth, and information, has named a new 14-member board for the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.

Marigold Harding will serve as chairperson, with Donahue Martin as vice-chairman.

The other members are Dr L’Antoinette Stines, Dr Tamika Benjamin, Professor Silvia Kouwenberg, Coleen Douglas, Dorraine Reid, Kachine Martin, Emprezz Golding, Winston Ewart, Winston McKain, Jo-Anne Archibald, Alison Dixon Stone, and Dr Nicholeen Degrasse-Johnson.

Benjamin, Kouwenberg, Douglas, Reid, Archibald, and Dixon Stone are the new additions to the board.

The board will serve for three years and the appointments take immediate effect.

“These are the folks who will now preside over the affairs of the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts,” Samuda said during yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.

Sexual harassment scandal

The naming of the new board comes amid concerns around the handling of an ongoing sexual harassment scandal at the institution.

“The board will take appropriate steps that are required consistent with government policy, and we get involved at the ministry level only when it is absolutely necessary for us to make the kind of executive decisions that are appropriate. But we don’t interfere with the management of the institutions that are under the control of the board,” he said.

The Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts is the first institution of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean to provide professional and technical training in the arts, offering qualifications at the bachelor, associate degree, and certificate levels.