Despite the recent cloud of controversy surrounding her appointment as the new president of the College of The Bahamas (COB), Janyne Hodder is optimistic about the future direction of the country’s premier tertiary institution, which she hopes will one day be called a university.
Hodder was speaking at the Rotary Club of Freeport’s regular weekly meeting at the Ruby Swiss Restaurant on Thursday, where she shared her vision for a new COB with Rotarians.
Addressing the turmoil surrounding her appointment, the new COB president said that she understands that change, especially major change, will birth some disputation.
“I think that when there’s a change in leadership in universities there’s always a lot of debate,” she said. “I think it’s normal that you would have a debate beforehand.”
Noting that Universities are places of debate and disagreements, Hodder said what she finds so amazing about themis that “generally once the decision is made it’s over.”
Hodder, a former vice-president of McGill University in Toronto, Canada, began her three-year contract at the college five days ago.
“I have had no intents of anything but support and openness on the part of colleagues and on the part of faculty and staff I’ve met and the students,” she said. “So I think the decisions have been made, the people are happy and look forward to move on.
“I pledge my commitment to the faculty, to the staff and to the students whose futures must be first in our hearts. I am honoured to be given this opportunity to serve an institution which shaped my career and nurtured me in the cause which has inspired my entire professional life.”
The new president said that she understands the important role that she has in shaping the local and national community and how to raise money to grow the enrollment of an academic institution.
“The cause is education. Education which frees us from ignorance and allows us to become fully human. Education, the best of it, teaches us to be who we are and allows us to become what in our dreams we wish to be,” Hodder shared.
She explained that the first thing she wants to see happen is the building of public support for the development of a university.
“We need to have a national engagement programme. We need to have everybody seeing this as our university, help us to move forward and the first thing I want to do is communicate,” she said. “Tell them about what we’re doing, so they know a little about how much we need their help.”
When questioned as to when she plans to make the declaration of COB as the University of The Bahamas (UOB), she said that would depend on the momentum she sees it creating.
“You can declare yourself for university, but what you need for it to work is to have everybody else to recognize it and believe it,” she said. “So you can create a momentum where people think, yeah that’s a university, look at its graduates, look at its faculty.
“I think that’s in the future still for me.”
By ANGELO ARMBRISTER, Freeport News Reporter
