Office
of the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal. Thursday, April 2, 2020.

Vice-Chancellor
of The University of the West Indies, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles
has congratulated The University of the West Indies Open Campus
on increasing its wide range of programmes being offered
to learners from across the Caribbean and internationally. The
kudos came as Sir Hilary delivered remarks at the Open Campus Council
Meeting held on Friday March 20, 2020.  

This
year’s Open Campus Council Meeting was the first to be held online
and was presided over by Ambassador Dr June Soomer, Secretary General
of the Association of Caribbean States and Chair of the Open Campus
Council.

“I
want to congratulate the Campus on offering these programmes,” Sir
Hilary commented. Referring to the Triple A Strategy of The UWI –
Access, Alignment and Agility – the Vice-Chancellor stated, “The
Open Campus is leading the access revolution.”

Sir
Hilary’s comments followed the presentation of the Principal’s
Report to Council in which Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the
Open Campus, Dr Luz Longsworth outlined several new programmes
introduced during the year under review. Among those introduced
during the last academic year were three BSc programmes in Sport:
Sport Coaching, Sport Management and Leadership and Sport Kinetics; a
Postgraduate Diploma in Leadership for Sustainable Development in
conjunction with Emperor State College, State University of New York
(SUNY); a postgraduate diploma in Healthcare Research and
Epidemiology, MPhil in Child,
Adolescent and Youth Studies, PhD in Child, Adolescent and Youth
Studies, MSc in Management - Management Information Systems, and a
Postgraduate Diploma, Masters and Doctorate in Teaching and Learning
with Emerging Technologies (TLET).

The
Campus also reported an increase in student population to over 20,000
students, of which 6,788 students were in Senate-Approved programmes
and 14,029 students in Continuing and Professional Education (CPE)
programmes.

Principal
Longsworth also reported on the implementation of a Campus Honour
Roll System in the Open Campus. Students
who achieve a minimum cumulative Grade Point Average (GPA) of 3.6. at
the end of each semester would qualify for the Honour Roll. The names
of students who have achieved the required GPA will be published on
the Open Campus website and each student will receive a personalized
letter of commendation from the Director of the Academic Programming
and Delivery Division.

The
Council also heard that during the period under review, the Campus’
physical presence in three countries were enhanced. These include the
re-opening of a Site on Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands,
completion of the refurbished Site in St Vincent and the Grenadines
and the completion of the Site in Chaguanas in Trinidad and Tobago.

During
the year under review, the Campus successfully completed a
re-accreditation exercise and was granted institutional
re-accreditation for the maximum of seven years by the Barbados
Accreditation Council (BAC). The campus has been granted mutual
recognition from 14 Open Campus countries either through the external
quality assurance agency or the relevant ministry of education.
Mutual recognition signifies that the external quality assurance
agency or ministry of education has accepted the institutional
accreditation decision of the BAC, and as such the campus does not
have to undergo a separate institutional accreditation process in the
respective country.

Among
the highlights of the Principal’s Report was the number of
partnership agreements the Campus brokered in the last academic year.
These include agreements with the West Indies Rum and Spirits
Producers Association (WIRSPA), the Jamaica Defence Force, Consular
Corps of Jamaica, Organisation of American States (OAS), the
Caribbean Institute of Health Research (CAIHR), and the Ministry
of Culture, Gender and Sport in Jamaica.

Campus
Response to COVID-19

Principal
Longsworth gave the Council meeting an update of the Open Campus’
response to COVID-19. Among the measures implemented by the Campus
for staff and students include: Home-Based Work Arrangement (HBWA),
counselling for both students and staff, provision of daily updates
to staff and students including wellness tips, flexible payment
arrangements for fees, and the facilitation of the online submission
of supporting documents via e-mail.

In
addition, the Campus moved swiftly to transition the Continuing and
Professional Education (CPE) courses from face-to-face to online
delivery. In this process over 900 persons were trained including
tutors and lecturers from the Open Campus and other campuses of The
University of the West Indies.

The
Campus has also extended its online course delivery expertise to
other regional education stakeholders by leading professional
development training on alternative ways of continuing education for
students.

During
the week of March 30 to April 3, 2020, training is being conducted
for community colleges academic staff, primary and secondary school
teachers, principals and education and curriculum officers from
ministries of education across the region.

Participants
from St Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Saint Lucia, the British
Virgin Islands, St Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Anguilla are being
trained on topics such as using web conferencing tools to facilitate
online delivery of content, basics for use of the Moodle Learning
Management System, and how to engage students in the online
environment.

The Council meeting included a public session and a press conference, which were broadcast live on UWItv and on the Open Campus Facebook page, and a closed session. The next Open Campus Council meeting will be held in March 2021.