Western Campus of UWI Welcomes First Batch of Students

The first batch of students who will study at the Western Jamaica Campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI), in Montego Bay, St. James turned up for orientation, today (August 26).
Some 90 of the 120 registered students for the 2008/2009 academic year, attended the exercise. The campus has been established on the grounds of the former Chatwick Garden Hotel, overlooking the Sangster International Airport.
Director of Student Services and Development at the UWI, Mona, Dr. Thelora Reynolds, told JIS News, that she was pleased at the amount of male students who were present at the orientation.
“I am very glad for that, because the trend has been that we have less and less men in the institution, so I am very pleased to see so many male students,” she said.
Dr. Reynolds explained that the new campus would begin with two faculties – Social Sciences, and Humanities and Education.
“This is a campus within its right, and people will be able to complete their degrees here. For a start, we will only be having undergraduate degrees, but I am sure as we grow and we develop, we will be, perhaps in the near future, offering Masters and PhDs right from this campus,” she said.
She said that the opening of the new campus would not affect the operations of the UWI School of Continuing Studies, which has been operating from Harrison House, on the Cornwall College grounds in Montego Bay, for many years.
Dr. Reynolds pointed out that students of the School of Continuing Studies could read for Certificates and Diplomas, that would allow them to matriculate to read for a degree on one of the UWI campuses, so there is still a need for the School of Continuing Studies.She said that, like all the other UWI campuses, the Western Jamaica Campus, has students from across the region.