Jennifer Cheesman, Contributor
Delighted faculty, staff, family, friends and awardees at a student awards ceremony at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus. - File
Today, we continue to spotlight those who have been nominated to receive the 2008 Gleaner Honour Awards this month at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel, New Kingston. In the category of education, the nominee is the University of the West Indies, Mona campus.
Despite the competitive education arena in which the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona operates, it continues to produce a larger number of graduates than any of the 10 or more universities operating in Jamaica and is the single university that trains doctors and lawyers in Jamaica.
In the last year, 3,427 students graduated, of whom 10 per cent of first-degree graduates obtained first-class honours. Over the 60 years since the UWI opened its doors to the 33 students who came from across the Anglophone Caribbean, the Mona campus has produced more than 50,000 Jamaican graduates in a broad range of disciplines that include education, medicine, science and technology, tourism and hospitality, humanities, management and the social sciences. In the last year, Mona's total student population was approximately 15,000.
The campus produced research in a wide range of areas that is directly relevant to economic development, and deployed its academic and senior administrative staff in public service, community development and consultancy engagements that directly impact the nation's development agenda.
Research and the national profile
In October 2007, the university raised Jamaica's research profile when Professor Anthony Chen was named among the global researchers who shared with the former United States Vice-President Al Gore the honour of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for their ground-breaking work on climate change.
Looking closer to home, the campus was Government's first port of call for research into critical areas affecting Jamaica's development, such as agriculture, crime and security, health-related issues and education, including early childhood education. It is not accidental that among those leading this year's national honours list were three professors from the University of the West Indies, Mona - Professor Anthony Chen, the Order of Merit; Professor Peter Figueroa for outstanding service in the field of epidemiology and in the development of the HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention Programme, the Order of Jamaica; and Professor Barbara Bailey for her distinguished contribution to education and gender studies, the Order of Jamaica.
During the year, the university, as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, sought to give a glimpse of the outstanding work of its younger researchers in a publication entitled '60 Under 60'. Some 22 of Mona's academics were showcased for their internationally recognised work in areas that range from the examination of patterns of development in small states, early childhood development to climate change and national ecological assessments.
Applying technology to probe and solve development tasks
The Caribbean Genetics Institute (CARIGEN) is the first and only research facility of its kind in the Caribbean offering DNA testing of the highest level. Over the year, it has continued to assist police investigations into serious crimes. And the newly established Mona GeoInformatix has produced a diversified suite of products and services that meet local needs, providing to the public and private sectors (including the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation, the Jamaica Constabulary Force, the Electoral Office of Jamaica, the National Housing Trust, ministries of housing and health, the Water Resources Authority, Jamaica Trade and Invest, the Jamaica National Building Society, NEM Insurance, The Gleaner, DIGICEL, Scotiabank and Island Grill) services that range from housing development mapping, crime mapping and resource deployment, malaria mapping and tracking, natural hazard mapping, billboard and store location mapping, among other things.
In recent years, the country's media landscape has seen the addition of a plethora of local radio and cable stations. The Caribbean Institute of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) is the leading university training facility for Jamaica's media professionals and practitioners graduating for the media industry, in the past year, some 84 Jamaicans in areas such as media and communication, and communi-cation studies. Like all of the university's programmes, CARIMAC's is continually reviewed for relevance. The institute offered three of its courses online through a partnership with UNESCO and the University of the West Indies Distance Education Centre. The courses offered were community media; online journalism; and information/media literacy. CARIMAC is currently revamping its curricula to ensure an improved quality in the training of Jamaica's media personnel.
Campus wide, various new courses and programmes were developed or approved during the year to address Jamaica's development imperative and market demand. These include a bachelor of arts (BA) in Caribbean sign language interpreting, a BA in entertainment and cultural enterprise management, a BA in gender and develop-ment studies and a master of science in telecommunications policy and technology management.
Teaching output
It is the quality of Mona's research activity that distinguishes its teaching activity from the competition. Mona's graduates bring to the Jamaican workplace knowledge that has been infused by the research activity and output in the relevant disciplines. This research activity itself is rooted in the country and the Caribbean and, consequently, facilitates appropriate national workplace application. Alongside this, the Mona graduate, precisely because of his or her exposure to a culture of research, brings to the world of work a critical curiosity that conduces to discovery and innovation.
Indeed, recent research undertaken by an independent consultant demonstrated that in the most successful business enterprises in the country, a key success factor has been the input of UWI researchers. The effect of the research activity - while in and of itself adds to and creates new knowledge in a multiplicity of areas, from crime through to bio-diversity to the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS - the effect of the research activity is to infuse the curriculum and classroom teaching activity with up-to-date, cutting-edge knowledge. This infusion results in graduates who are more likely to be critical and analytical thinkers, and who with the requisite on-the-job training, are more likely to lead innovation at the workplace.
The campus also benefits Jamaican firms and employers through its internship programmes. For in seeking to provide the practical skills required for work-ready graduates, Mona partners with employers, providing them with inexpensive undergraduate labour even as the students acquire on-the-job experience.
Responding to the demand for programmes in the medical sciences, the Faculty of Medical Sciences increased its intake in the MBBS and nursing programmes by 100 per cent and 300 per cent, respectively. Significantly, this increased intake was at no cost to taxpayers since many of these students pay the full economic cost of their tuition.
The campus, through its business school, the Mona School of Business (MSB), in this last year also graduated some 128 Jamaicans in first and second degrees and post-graduate diplomas in business administration, thereby providing Jamaica's employers in the private and public sectors with managerial capacity at the trainee, junior, middle, senior and executive levels. Through the school, Mona has rebranded itself, establishing relation-ships with the private sector by becoming the primary outreach arm of the academy, providing not only training, but also undertaking consulting services geared towards improving organisational perfor-mance. Since its establishment, the school has trained some 1,098 students to become managers through its MBA and diploma programmes.
The Executive MBA programme has served to hone the skills of more than 453 middle managers in the private and public sectors towards their assuming executive leadership positions or becoming creators of new businesses, entrepreneurs. Today, despite the plethora of institutions offering similar programmes in Jamaica, the MSB remains the number-one choice for those seeking high-quality, professional graduate management and executive development training. Just this year, the school added to its suite of programmes the doctorate in business administration that will prepare a cadre of Jamaicans to lead teaching and research in the discipline.
Responding to demandfor education in the west
The campus, recognising that the industries in the Western region of the country are poised for phenomenal growth, carefully analysed the demand for university programmes in Western Jamaica. As a consequence, it opened, in September, its satellite site in Montego Bay to 168 students pursuing careers in management studies, media and communications, hospitality and tourism management and other programmes. The location also provides training for medical students registered at the Mona campus who complete clerkships at the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay. We expect to increase this number significantly over the next few years.
Sports Development
Jamaica's unprecedented success at the Beijing Olympics brought to the fore the requirement to take advantage of the opportunities that have arisen to develop in a serious way the country's sports industry. Mona organised itself to take full advantage of these opportunities to harness the economic potential of this fledgling sports industry. The campus built on its existing assets - its facilities, people, research and its traditional courses of study - augmenting them with a range of new elements to create programmes that respond directly to the emerging challenges and opportunities.
The campus also embarked on an exciting new phase of our sports project that will see the development of world-class sports facilities for training, competition and recreation. Most significant, we developed plans to add to our existing sports facilities a 6,000-seat mini stadium with an international-sized soccer field encircled by a Mondo track and including multiple courts for indoor events. It is expected that construction of these facilities will begin in 2009.
Earlier in 2008, the campus entered into partnerships with the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF). Under the terms of this partnership, the campus will be host to the JFF Football Academy. And, more recently, it joined with the International Association of Athletic Federation (IAAF) to host the IAAF High-Performance Centre. The Mona Bowl, where Usain Bolt and others of Jamaica's high-performing athletes have trained over the year, will resonate with new meaning in the coming months.
At the beginning of the academic year, the campus initiated a scholarship programme for athletes in football and track-and-field and the university introduced a policy of academic support that includes tutorial assistance, flexibility in course assessment and exams for all its students who participate in sports at the competition level. Through these initiatives, the Mona campus has signalled to the nation its commitment to investing in Jamaica's natural athletic talent and to ensuring as it does so that its student athletes, at the end of their athletic careers, have sound academic credentials to guarantee their continued success, however they position themselves in the nation and the world.
Public service
The campus contributes to national development through its active participation in public service. The majority of its approximately 600 full-time academics and senior administrators currently serve on at least one of some 200 public and private sector boards, commissions, committees and the like, in the capacity as chair or member. Such entities include the Planning Institute of Jamaica, Advisory Council, Constabulary Force Staff College, Archaeological Society of Jamaica, Banana Board, Bellevue Hospital, Agricultural Research Develop-ment Institute, Board of Teacher Education, Bustamante Hospital for Children, CXC, Coffee Industry Board, EFJ, Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Early Childhood Commission, Bank of Nova Scotia, GraceKennedy and Company, National Commercial Bank and Jamaica Producers Group.
Of particular note is that, in the past academic year, one of the campus' academics led the committee that was set up to organise and manage the national celebrations of the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery. And, in the current year, three academics have been seconded in advisory positions to ministers of government.
Conferences and symposia
In its outreach to the wider community, Mona stages a host of conferences and symposia, half of them regional and international, all aimed at engaging the country in dialogue that will influence policy formulation towards economic, social and cultural development. This past year, there were more than 65 such forums, among them the Regional Conference on Crime and Security; Global Reggae Conference; Annual Nursing/Midwifery Research Conference; and a Conference on Economic Growth and Transformation.
Community development
Mona's research into Jamaica's chronic crime problem has shown that preventive strategies will be the most effective in reversing the alarming escalation in criminal activity. To this end, the Mona campus consolidated its efforts in community development, engaging its neighbouring inner-city communities, such as August Town, Hermitage and Elliston Flats, in the Campus's Township Project. Through this, we hope to deepen the relationship with the surrounding communities, promoting educational development, skills training, health and nutrition, community develop-ment, economic development, violence prevention and, of course, the development of sports and culture. Already, there are signs of remarkable progress and we hope that this project will serve as a model for the entire country in our collective effort to eradicate the scourge that threatens our personal security and our national economic growth.
Jennifer Cheesman is head of the Office of Planning and Institutional Research, University of the West Indies, Mona.
