May 2012


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Council approves UWI Strategic Plan

The governing body of The UWI, its University Council, met on April 27, at the Mona Campus for its annual business meeting. Chaired by UWI Chancellor, Sir George Alleyne, the meeting dealt with a number of matters including approval of financial reports, tuition fees for the next academic year, the appointment of Deans and several Senior Managers, endorsement of recommendations for honorary degrees and approval of the Strategic Plan to guide the institution for the next five-year period.

The Vice Chancellor (VC), Professor E. Nigel Harris, reported on the University’s accomplishments and highpoints of the preceding year. He spoke of the record growth in student numbers over the past decade, from approximately 22,000 to in excess of 47,000, which spawned a number of capital development projects to meet the demand for teaching, learning and living spaces. More than 21 infrastructural projects were undertaken in that period. Among them, student housing, medical facilities and the Ryan Brathwaite athletic track at Cave Hill, teaching and student accommodation at Mona, along with the new Faculty of Law building, film building, Daaga Auditorium and Teaching and Learning Complex at St Augustine, and the upgrade of Open campus sites across the region, including Grenada, St. Lucia, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Reporting on the foundation set in the current five-year strategic planning period (2007-2012), the Vice Chancellor noted the gains in expanding Caribbean citizens’ access to higher education—namely through a 25% increase in enrolment in undergraduate and graduate programmes over that time, and initiatives such as the establishment of the Open Campus and Western Jamaica Campus and the addition of more market-driven programme offerings. He mentioned initiatives such as the strengthening of UWI’s Quality Assurance Units and the commencement of Institutional Accreditation exercises. Special emphasis was placed on the formation of research clusters in areas relevant to sustainable regional development, and the Vice Chancellor highlighted some important research projects in the period under review, namely, the Caribbean Cocoa Rehabilitation project, the regional Biosafety Project through the Global Environment Fund, and research in Non-Communicable Disease, HIV/AIDS as well as in the areas of Improving Early Childhood Development and Parenting Interventions.

Council approved the 2012-2017 Strategic Plan, which features a business model approach and utilises the Balanced Scorecard.