Although not committing to the originally set date of fall 2007, College of The Bahamas President Janyne Hodder said while a guest on the Love 97 Sunday programme “Jones and Company” that COB is making good progress toward becoming a university.
Asked by the showﾒs host, Wendall Jones, when the University of The Bahamas will become reality, Ms. Hodder said, “We are about two months away from deciding that. I think we will probably put a date on that and have a countdown, because we do need a countdown. I think weﾒre in the process of doing some very significant things that help prepare.”
Ms. Hodder stressed that the move toward university status is a process, and added that the college already has “some critical pieces” in place. She said COB today has high quality undergraduate programmes and it already has some graduate programmes in partnership with other institutions, which will be expanded.
“We probably will be ready to fly on our own fairly shortly, probably next year,” she said.
The college president, however, acknowledged that COB needs to do a better job at building a research component, which is now a part of the focus of preparing the institution to become a university.
“Weﾒve got a strategy to do that in terms of connecting with other universities,” Ms. Hodder said.
“We need to build confidence so that we attract some of the best and brightest to come to us in greater numbers than they do now. We need international exchange programmes. We need to be known on the international scene because you can declare yourself to be a university, but itﾒs a lot better if other people say you are too.”
The new COB president and her colleagues only recently mapped a new organizational structure to focus on the needs of the college, and incorporate the collegeﾒs strategic plan.
“I think it would be important that we have a couple of months to look at how thatﾒs rolling out before we actually set the countdown because the countdown date is going to create a schedule backwards for us,” said Ms. Hodder, adding that the university will come into being way before 2009, which was the date suggested by Mr. Jones.
The COB president took up her post in the summer, one year after Dr. Rodney Smith resigned amid a plagiarism debacle. While a guest on “Jones and Company” during his short tenure as president, Dr. Smith said the College Council had set fall 2007 as the target date for university status.
Ms. Hodder said COB is about nation building and that will continue to be the goal of the University of The Bahamas.
“Weﾒre not the show that people are watching,” she said. “Weﾒre the dream that the country is building and people need to build it with us.”
Ms. Hodder said COB is also focusing on benchmarking so it will be very clear about its strengths and weaknesses compared to international universities.
“What it requires most are high aspirations and confidence to get [to university status] because in anything in life if you imagine yourself succeeding, if you see yourself crossing the finish lineﾅyouﾒll get there,” said the COB president, who added that the focus will not be on New Providence only, but the entire Bahamas.
Along that line, she noted that the new COB campus in Grand Bahama should be built by next fall with the help of the Grand Bahama Port Authority, which has donated 50 acres of land. She also said COB is seeking to expand its reach in other islands so that Family Island students will have more options to study at the college from their home island.
“I think it has to be a national institution, beyond perception,” said Ms. Hodder, who is the former president of Bishopﾒs University in Lennoxville, Quebec, and former vice principal of McGill University, also in Quebec.
“No family in The Bahamas should be left untouched by our work,” she added. “How we do that and still maintain high quality is a challenge.”
By: Candia Dames, The Bahama Journal
