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[merce]

Trinidad & Tobago has a University of the west Indies announcing a position available.

Barbados has a university of the west indies announcing a position available.

Looks to be same position.

Is that odd?

What would it be to go from the normal route of state institution VAPdom to tenure track heavy load in the West Indies I wonder?

Anyone have a take on this. I've not been to either of these places but Saint Lucia is my favorite island for some reason despite my great love of the food and dance and music and accent of guadeloupe.

Would they seriously hire an American with no previous ties to the area?
Am I wasting my time?
Will the be happy to have someone who has done a variety of things?

Is the genereal consensus on this thread that people have been happy while teaching abroad or not so much.?

[wegie]

A quick look on jobs.ac.uk shows that they're very definitely two jobs.

Think of UWI as being just like any other multi-campus system. There's some central admin, and all the degrees say UWI, but Barbados and St Augustine are essentially separate universities. It's unsurprisingly very like the original organization of the University of London.

I'd say apply. In my field (IT/CS) they hire people from outside the region all the time. A guy a year ahead of me in my PhD had a phone interview for a job at the Barbados campus and they didn't seem to have any qualms about interviewing somebody sat in west Wales.

It would probably be a good idea to read up a bit about the history of the university and the various islands. If my memory serves me correctly, UWI and the West Indies cricket team are about the only things left from the movement in the 30s and 40s to eventually grant independence to a federation of the British-governed islands rather than to each individual island (don't mention the cricket team at the moment unless you want to provoke tears, they're having an absolutely awful year ;-). For the St Augustine job, some knowledge of the racial politics of T&T might be useful.

Apply away. The worst that could happen is that you end up living in Barbados or Trini!