Τ CHAPTER VII The University College of the West Indies IT IS in higher education that the most spectacular educational advance has been made in the British Caribbean since World War II. This is due to the founding and development of the Universtiy College of the West Indies located at Mona, near Kingston, Jamaica. The Role of Codrington College Prior to 1948 the only facilities for higher learning in the British Caribbean, aside from those for agricultural education at the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, were at Codrington College in Barbados. It offered programs in the classics and theology for a small number of students. Dating back to the will of Sir Christopher Codrington, who died in 1710 and wished to found an institution of theological training for the Anglican clergy in the West Indies, Codrington College had passed through various vicissitudes and achieved recognized status as an institution of higher learning when it was affiliated to the University of Durham in 1875. Under this affiliation classics were added to the theological base of the institution, and the University of Durham bestowed its degrees on students completing university level work in these fields at Codrington. Since 1841 more than half the clergy in the West Indian Province of the Anglican Church have been trained there. Numerous British West Indian schoolmasters and lawyers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries also attended Codrington. In 1946 the role of Codrington College as a training center for the Anglican Church was given official recognition when it was designated as the Provincial Theological College of the Anglican Province of the West Indies. In 1955 the Anglican Order of the Community of the Resurrection assumed direction of the College, and it again became almost exclusively an institution for theological training. From 1953-54, when there were 12 university level students at Codrington studying for University of Durham degrees, the number declined to 3 in 1957 and 1 in 1958. In the latter year the College had 5 faculty members and a total student enrollment of 32. Thus, simultaneously with the founding and growth of the University College of the West Indies, there has occurred the virtual eclipse of Codrington College as an institution offering programs at the university level. Development of the University College The University College came into existence as part of the general movement to develop university education in British overseas territories. For the British West Indies, this movement found expression in the 1944 recommendation of the so-called Irvine Committee (from the name of the Committee Chairman, Sir James Irvine, ViceChancellor of St. Andrews University) that a University College of the West Indies be established as an affiliated college of the University of London. This recommendation was accepted by the British and the territorial Governments. Following the drawing up of organization plans, the University College opened its doors in 1948 with the entrance of a small number of medical students. A Royal Charter incorporating the University College was issued in January 1949. Starting in temporary wooden barracks used for housing refugees during World War II, the University College occupied these quarters until the erection of a series of modern buildings. The first stage of the building program was completed in 1953. The facilities at Mona in 1958-59 included lecture halls, laboratories, administration offices, a library, four student residence halls, a Student Union building, approximately 50 faculty residences, a 300-bed teaching hospital with facilities for clinical training of medical students and nurses, and a playing field, sports area, and olympic size swimming pool. It is not the intention to set forth full and detailed information on the University College. (Factual data are available from several published sources listed in the bibliography accompanying this Bulletin.) The emphasis here will be on recent developments and apparent trends in the programs and organization of the University College, including its role and activities in meeting the needs and problems of the West Indies Federation. New Programs of Study One of these trends is the movement toward the establishment of new programs of study and new Faculties, or Schools, to carry them out. As background for an understanding of this movement, it should be pointed out that the three Faculties established early in the University College's existence were those into which its several Departments continued to be organized in 1959. There were (1) the Faculty of Arts, consisting of Departments of Classics, Economics, English, History, and Modern Languages; (2) the Faculty of Natural Sciences, consisting of the Departments of Botany, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics, and Zoology; and (3) the Faculty of Medicine, consisting of the Departments of Anatomy, Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pathology, Physiology, and Surgery. In addition, the College's Department of Education enjoyed an autonomous status, not being affiliated with any Faculty. In 1959 the degree programs of the University College followed the general pattern of English Universities, and specifically that of the University of London, which grants the degrees awarded after study at the University College. All programs for Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science "general" degrees were 3 years in length. A 3-year Bachelor of Arts "honours" degree (signifying more intensive specialization in a given field) was also offered in English, French, History, and Latin. A 3-year program for a Bachelor of Science Special degree program in the Faculty of Natural Sciences, has recently been added, involving intensive specialization in one subject, with specified ancillary subjects. Through 1957 no degrees of this nature had yet been awarded. The program for the degree of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery is 6 years in length from the time of university entrance. London University graduate degrees of Master of Science, Master of Arts, and Doctor of Philosophy may be awarded in certain circumstances, but the UCWI is overwhelmingly an institution for undergraduates and medical students. Initial enrollment figures in the fall of 1959 showed a total of 695 students in all programs, of whom about 25 were students holding undergraduate degrees. Approximately 20 of these were studying for the UCWI Diploma in Education, and the others for the UCWI Diploma in Chemical Technology or the Master of Science degree of the University of London.1 The two Diplomas mentioned are granted directly by the University College itself, as contrasted to the regular degrees, which are awarded by the University of London. The Education Diploma will be described later. The existence of a program for a Diploma in Chemical Technology is a recognition of the need for practical chemists in the British Caribbean. It provides a minimum 1-year program designed to give training to undergraduate degree holders in chemistry to fit them better for employment in various industries of the Caribbean area such as sugar and bauxite. Before this Diploma is awarded, the candidate must complete at least 3 months of approved experience in some chemical phase of industry. 1 Figures taken from the UCWI Newsletter, No. 305, Oct. 12, and No. 315, Dec. 21, In 1959, plans for the addition of three new Faculties were at various stages of discussion and development. The farthest along was the aforementioned plan to convert the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture into a degree-granting Faculty of Agriculture of the University College, which had been under consideration for several years.2 This merger was scheduled to take place in August 1960. Proposals of the governing bodies of the two institutions to this end were unanimously accepted at a conference of the West Indies Federal Government and the Territorial Governments in March 1959.3 A second new Faculty which has long been discussed and for which plans are being considered is a Faculty of Engineering. One of the recommendations of the aforementioned Mission on Higher Technical Education in the British Caribbean was that the UCWI should proceed with its plan to develop a degree course in Engineering Science. A principal obstacle to its establishment to date has been financial, i.e., the high cost of establishing and equipping engineering facilities for teaching purposes. It was in large part to avoid duplication of facilities that the Mission on Higher Technical Education recommended that arrangements for joint use of one set of engineering laboratories be worked out by the UCWI and the technical college or institute then being planned by the Government of Jamaica and since established as the Jamaica Institute of Technology. In 1959, as one aspect of the solution of the general problem of financing overall expansion of the UCWI financial resources were becoming available which it was expected would enable teaching in engineering to begin in the fall of 1960. In February 1960, it was announced that the Faculty of Engineering would be located in Trinidad in association with the new Faculty of Agriculture. A third projected area of development of instructional programs is the Social Sciences. The initiation of a 3-year honours degree program in economics in the fall of 1959 which would lead to the Bachelor of Science of the University of London in this field was regarded as the first step in this direction. The Department of Economics, which has been for some time a part of the Faculty of Arts, has been strengthened by the addition of several new staff members. The institution of this degree program will permit more intensive specialization by undergraduates in this field of vital import to the British Caribbean areas than has heretofore been possible. Thirty-three undergraduates began studies in this program in October 1959.5 2 See Wood, Robert S. Report on the Provision of Agricultural Education of University Degree Standard in the British Caribbean Territories. Colonial Office, No. 313 (London, 1955). 3 UCWI Newsletter, No. 78, Apr. 6, 1959. 4 UCWI Newsletter, No. 307, Oct. 26, and No. 311, Nov. 23, 1959. 5 UCWI Newsletter, No. 310, Nov. 16, 1959. Another fact in this connection is the reorganization and expansion of the Department of Economics through the integration into it of the University College's Institute of Social and Economic Research. The Institute has long been an integral part of the College to investigate and perform advanced research on social and economic questions affecting the British Caribbean area. It has also published the quarterly, Social and Economic Studies, and has sponsored lectures and conferences in these fields. Studies and investigations prepared under its auspices have dealt with such subjects as the economic problems of the various British Caribbean territories and the West Indies Federation as a whole, including trade questions and the matter of West Indian customs union. Heretofore the Institute has not been a teaching organization. With the integration of the Institute into the Department of Economics in Ocober 1959, the Institute's staff "became members of the Department having duties similar to those of other members of teaching departments in the college." It was planned that the Institute would also continue to have a formal existence within the Department of Economics and that its research program would be conducted on a larger scale than previously. In the fall of 1959 it was envisaged at the UCWI that the foregoing developments would lead to the rapid expansion of teaching of the Social Sciences and that the reconstituted Department of Economics would expand into a Faculty of Social Sciences within a few years. In addition to economics, specialized study and professional training in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and political science are recognized as vital in view of the cultural, social, and racial patterns of the British Caribbean areas and their emerging political development. In this connection, the new Principal of the University College appointed in 1959 to assume his duties in 1960 is a noted West Indian economist and social scientist who has held teaching positions in the United Kingdom as well as various administrative and research positions with international bodies, and was to continue serving as Deputy Director of the Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development until April 1960. Enrollment Increase A second and related trend at the University College is an anticipated marked increase in enrollment. From the 33 students who enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine when the College opened its doors in 1948, the numbers in all Faculties and Departments gradually increased until at the beginning of the academic year 1959-60 6 UCWI Newsletter, No. 306, Oct. 19, 1959. |