NASSAU, Bahamas – The College of The Bahamas wants to achieve university status by 2007 but it will need more cash donations to fulfil that goal.
“In order to support the type of work that a university is expected to do – which would be essentially teaching, research and service – we need to have the type of infrastructure that one expects to see at a university,” said Acting President at COB, Dr. Rhonda Chipman-Johnson.
However, she said the budget of the college is very tight.
“Our budget that we work with at this present time is some $32 million. Sixty percent of that comes from the government and 40 percent comes from tuition and fees.
“Our recurring expenses, however, also amount to $32 million. Twenty-five percent of our expenses are devoted to our operational funds and 75 percent of our monies are devoted to salaries and benefits,” said Dr. Chipman-Johnson.
The Acting President was speaking at a luncheon to initiate collaboration between healthcare professionals and COB faculty and staff.
She told her audience that the institution is seeking donations from individuals and businesses. Persons who donate substantial amounts will get media attention and/or have buildings, classrooms and laboratories named after them.
Despite the funding challenges, the college is still moving ahead with its plans to become a university.
It is building a world-class 80,000 square foot library, which according to VP, Finance and Administration, Mr. Denton Brown should be opened two years from now.
Also the college is training and recruiting qualified faculty with credentials that one would expect to find at a university.
Dr. Chipman-Johnson said, “We have a very progressive and supportive faculty development programme. At the present time we have at least three faculty members pursuing doctorates, and in the fall another two will be leaving to pursue that credential.
“At the present time, we have about 90 percent of our faculty with at least the Master’s Degree, about 25 – 27 percent with doctorate degrees. So we have some way to go. We believe that we have to begin with at least 50 percent of our faculty with doctorate degrees.”
The college also has several institutes to provide quality education. There is the Marine and Environmental Studies Institute, the Culinary and Hospitality Management Institute and the International Languages and Cultures Institute, which is coming on stream in the fall and will offer a variety of foreign language services and expose the Bahamian community to a plethora of world cultures.
The college also wants to diversify its student population. As it stands now, Bahamians make up 95 percent of the student population said Dr. Chipman.
It is expanding its reach into the Family Islands. It has just finalised plans to construct a new campus in Grand Bahama on 270 acres of land provided by the Port Authority. That will be the college’s second campus.
The college is also concentrating on building a science complex to support work done at COB and to also interact with secondary schools.
Dr. Chipman-Johnson said, “We hope to interact with the secondary level because they feed us and we need to do the types of research that would help to inform where we are going in the whole area of science.”
Mr. Brown added that the science complex will be a state-of-the-art complex with the capacity to hold classroom and laboratories with space for supporting offices, lecture theatres and so forth.
He said, “We’re going to focus on the primary subjects – biology, chemistry, physics, general and environmental sciences.
“In addition, when we move to becoming a university and bring in quality faculty, we have to in fact create for them research capacity. The reason that a university does research is to develop the faculty.
