In the regular session of its quarterly meeting on June 22, inside the Administration and Conference Center Building at the St. Thomas Campus, the Board of Trustees (Board) unanimously accredited a new Master of Arts in Social Work Degree Program and a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree Program. Both degrees may be administered in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences under Dr. Kimarie Engerman’s leadership, who serves as dean of the liberal arts college.
“There is pretty a want for educated social workers,” stated Trustee Yvonne Thraen, who provided the Academic, Research and Student Affairs Committee recommendation to the Board.
“The MSW application at the University of the Virgin Islands (University) will observe tips established through the Council on Social Work Education, which accredits social work packages nationally. In addition to offering a robust curriculum that helps the generalist social work practitioner, the MSW at UVI can be designed to provide the pupil with in-intensity know-how of trauma-informed practices. This is crucial to running with populations exposed to intergenerational trauma, negative adolescence reports, or as a result of experiencing natural disasters. Moreover, Thraen said that all of the coursework and area studies will focus on the social institutions and desires of humans belonging to the Caribbean diaspora.
“The University of the Virgin Islands feels that we can now not depend upon importing social people into the territory, specifically for the ones which might be the most prone,” said Dr. Camille McKayle, the University provost. “We need to educate from a Caribbean cultural perspective.
The Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) accredited with the Board’s aid will consist of song performance, theatre, and dance concentrations. Music, theatre, and dance teach college students existence abilties and experience the arena uniquely. The diploma will permit students to look at art from around the sector and see how art reflects the contemporary world by introducing social commentaries and developing an appreciation for variety.
“We need to emphasize Caribbean tradition and contributions to tune, dance, and theatre, and so, you may be seeing Caribbean culture pondered inside the advanced software,” said McKayle. “We are sincerely enthusiastic about the BFA application.”
The Board of Trustees also authorized Memorandums of Understanding with T.A. Marryshow Community College in Grenada, Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in Saint Lucia, and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. The memorandums of understanding dated numerous days in 2019 set up instructional and purposeful cooperation for ten years.
UVI will offer college students from the two community colleges and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States 1.75 times the lesson rates installed for citizens of the territory to sign up for undergraduate and graduate packages.
In the President’s Report, UVI President David Hall informed the Board of pupil accomplishments through the Thurgood Marshall Leadership Institute. Approximately 15 students attend the institute each yr and participate in training. Students are cinterviewing with main agencies for internships and permanent employment opportunities. Two University students have earned placements as interns, and another was hired for an everlasting process after attending the institute.
Arl Polydore, junior pc technology most important, will be joining Walmart in Arkansas as a community professional intern in June 2019. This is a paid internship where Polydore can run with people in computer technology and community engineering.
Iris Battiste, junior accounting, most important, joined The Boeing Company as a payroll intern in May 2019. This is a paid internship in which Battiste may be working with pinnacle executives within the field.
Javan Navarro, graduating senior with a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting, most important, turned into supplied a complete-time role with Caterpillar Inc. Navarro will be becoming a Caterpillar Inc member as an entry-level accountant within the Finance Services Division in June 2019.
“As tons as we want to maintain our talent here inside the territory, the University additionally has to create the possibilities for college students to take their competencies national at a number of the leading agencies within the united states of America, and this is an instance that is happening,” stated President Hall.
Hall also informed the Board that Nicole Fleming, a biology graduate, earned her Ph.D. In February 2019, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Pathobiology and Translational Science. She now works for United Therapeutics Corporation doing tissue engineering related to lung features.
As is standard, President Hall highlighted the distinction and dedication of those UVI employees or devices who have performed rather with the President’s Appreciation Award. This sector’s award was presented to the Childcare Lab and Diagnostic Center.
“I bear in mind once I first arrived, one of the first activities we had with our alumni they requested, when is this University going to create a childcare center on campus so that students might not have to carry their children to elegance?” President Hall recalled. “I understood why that was being requested, but it becomes hard for me to envision at that time that we may want to make this a truth.”
The Childcare Lab and Diagnostic Center will be formally released on Monday, June 24, with the Department of Education and the Title III Program’s guide and assistance. The curriculum for the middle is evolved using the University’s School of Education.
“Our wish is that this childcare center may also serve the wishes of personnel and even human beings within the community,” Hall stated.
“When we commenced thinking about this and while the scholars asked me to work on this, the most effective wanted a place where college students could be dropped off,” he stated. “Over time, we started to understand that that is critical, but we needed to do more; we needed to create an early formative years training center that could function as a version of a way children should be taught, supported, and stimulated, even at an early age.”