Dr Georges, who has been serving as Interim President, was officially invested full-time in office today at a ceremony attended by top local and regional educators, civil servants, family, friends and members of the House of Assembly.

He is the seventh person to hold the office of President at the 30-year-old institution.

Dr Georges started attending the H Lavity Stoutt Community College at the age of 16. He later became a teacher at the college and held several posts including Head of the Faculty of Humanities. He also served on several committees where he contributed to the advancement of the students and faculty of the indigenous institution.

He was hailed as a passionate student of language and one committed to the development and education of the Virgin Islands.

In his inaugural address as President, Dr Georges said he is already discovering the pressures that come with the office. He also shared his vision to attract international students to the local school, adding that it will take collaboration with the government and private sector.

“We do not want to be larger for larger sake. Instead, we want to offer our programmes where they are needed while at the same time, diversifying our current student body and their experience,” Dr Georges explained.

Dr Georges is also an essayist and a founding editor of MOKO: Caribbean Arts & Letters. In 2020, Georges won the poetry category and the overall OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature with his third collection Epiphaneia.

Last year, he also became the territory’s first-ever Poet Laureate, a position which he promises to use to further develop literary arts in the BVI.