Head of T&T college sent on leave, audit ordered

(Trinidad Express) Emmanuel Gonsalves, president of the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (COSTAATT), has been sent on six months immediate “administrative leave” by the COSTAATT board of trustees, the Express has learnt.

An audit has been ordered into all operations at COSTAATT with a directive that prohibits the shredding of any documents at the school.

Increased security has been ordered at the school to ensure no documents are taken from the compound.

Staff at COSTAATT were informed of the board’s decision via internal electronic mail sent yesterday.

Gonsalves’s six-month administrative leave took effect from last week Friday.

While Gonsalves’s official replacement is yet to be named, Dr Gillian Paul, vice president of Academic Affairs at COSTAATT, is expected to fill the role, a source told the Express.

Gonsalves was appointed COSTAATT president on September 1, 2008.

According to the COSTAATT website, “Gonsalves returned to Trinidad after nineteen years at Medgar Evers College, New York, where he was intimately involved in creating and implementing educational policies and programmes at the highest policy-making level.”

Paul is the Vice President, Academic Affairs. She served as interim Chief Executive Officer of COSTAATT from September 2002 to June 2004 when the college’s first president was appointed.

The COSTAATT board of trustees is currently chaired by Dr Allan McKenzie, current head of the Department of English and Communication at the University of the West Indies School of Business Studies.

COSTAATT falls under the purview of the Ministry of Tertiary Education.

Attempts to contact Minister of Tertiary Education, Fazil Karim, to get information on the situation at COSTAATT, proved futile yesterday.