The Academy at UTT for Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs (hereafter referred to as The Academy) was established on the basis of an Advisory Council Report submitted to the Chairman of the Board of Governors, The University of Trinidad and Tobago on February 28th, 2005. The members of the Advisory Council were:

• Mr. Ian 'Teddy' Belgrave
• Mr. Gerard Besson
• Mr. Rawle Gibbons
• Ms. Merle Hodge
• Mr. R. Barry McComie
• Dr. Kirk Meighoo
• Mr. Ravindra Nath Maharaj (Raviji)
• Professor Kenneth Ramchand (Chairman)

The Report was accepted by the Board of Governors and a Director was appointed with a mandate "to provide the leadership that is required to pursue the vision and ideas as articulated in the Report 'The Academy for the Humanities, Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs'."

Since its establishment in 2005, The Academy has defined itself as an Institute for Advanced Study and Research, dedicated to rediscovering the aspects of the cultures of the Region that have been hidden, repressed and neglected or presented in a discourse that all too often misrepresents value and significance. To carry out his work, The Academy's second emphasis is learning from the communities whose culture it is researching; and through its outreach programmes, reporting back to these communities and to the general public at regular intervals through its public lecture series.

The Academy's activities between 2005 and 2006 included the selection and appointment of Fellows, the formulation of specific project proposals within a framework for the Report and the preparation of an Architect's Brief for the construction of a dedicated Academy Building at The main UTT Campus at Tamana.

In 2005 - 2006, The Academy conducted an Advanced Steel Pan Tuning workshop for established practitioners and devised a proposal for a Bachelor's of Science degree in the Science and Technology of Music (with special reference to Pan). A conference on Ramlila was held to discover where the emphasis should lie in the development of Indian Cultural Studies and similar attempts were made to reach out to the African cultural elements. These activities included a lecture on 'The Significance of African Heritage in the Caribbean' by distinguished researcher Professor Maureen Warner-Lewis, within a series of four lectures called The Classical and the Contemporary.  One of the highlights of the public lectures was 'The Caribbean in a Global World - An Urgent Need for Vision' at the Central Bank Auditorium by Dr. Randall Robinson.