UTech, Ja Graduation 2020

P rofessor the Honourable Mervyn Morris, OM has had an extensive impact on the Jamaican literary landscape spanning over 50 years. A distinguished poet, editor and academic, Professor Morris has contributed to liter- ary critique and scholarly discourse in the pursuit of excellence in the development and study of poetry, and Jamaican literary tradition and culture. Educated at the University College of the West Indies, and as a Rhodes Scholar at St Edmund Hall in Oxford, Professor Morris is an eminent scholar of Louise Bennett- Coverley, with noted publication ‘ On Reading Louise Bennett, Seriously’ in 1963, as well as a biography of the cultural icon that highlights and assesses her contribu- tion to Jamaican culture. He has been a teacher at Munro College, and an educator at the University of the West Indies, where he retired in 2002 as Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & West Indian Literature. He has also served as Lecturer, Professor and Writer-in-Resi- dence at various universities across the United States and the United Kingdom. The Institute of Jamaica, in acknowledge- ment of his talent and services, conferred the prestigious Silver Musgrave Medal for Poetry on Professor Morris in 1976, and the Gold Musgrave Medal for Literature in 2018. In 2009, the Jamaican Government recognized Professor Morris’ outstanding contribution to Jamaican culture and heritage with the award of the Jamaican Order of Merit. He was appointed the Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2014, the first to be accorded the title since Jamaica’s independence in 1962. 13 HONORARY GRADUAND Professor the Honourable Mervyn Morris, OM