Principal's Report - St. Augustine Campus

Professor Brian Copeland

Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal

The COVID-19 pandemic coinsiced with the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the St. Augustine Campus. A time that would normally be used to look back and take stock, was instead spent hurtling into a future that is closer than anyone could have ever imagined. While the circumstances are indeed devastating for millions around the world, it provided the Campus with the opportunity to step up, show its resilience and its value by putting its 60 years of investment in the infrastructure, processes, research, knowledge generation and people to the service of the people of its host nation and the region.

The St. Augustine Campus defined five core areas for strategic intervention and upon which its operational plan is based, in accordance with The UWI Triple A Strategic Plan:

  • Curriculum and Pedagogical Reform
  • Innovation and Entrepreneurship
  • Internal Process
  • Financial Processes
  • HR Review

Access

  • Enrolment Snapshot
    Total student enrolment: 16,126 – down 1%
    Postgraduate enrolment: 4,827 – down 5%
    Undergraduate enrolment: 11,299 – up by less than 1%
  • Graduation Snapshot
    • Total graduates: 3,095 students
    Postgraduate degrees, diplomas and certificates: 624 – down 54%
    Undergraduate degrees, diplomas and certificates: 2,471 – down 14%
  • The Campus is driving curriculum and course review and reforms that target the required learning outcomes to ensure that future graduates can play a more transformational role in society. Thus far these have included:
    • A structural review of the Evening University (EU) to better and more efficiently serve the target population
    • Development of an Educational Philosophy to guide faculties in the design of their curriculum
    • Development of an Online Course Catalogue/ Repository which houses all approved course outlines
    • Definition of the characteristics of "Underserved Community" for broader access
    • Pre-requisite assessment and streamlining o Development of a framework for The UWI Academic Enterprise that includes process mapping of a holistic Teaching and Learning environment, curriculum re-design for a holistic education, review of processes for course design, delivery and assessment, and re-engineering of all processes, including registrarial and bursarial support processes
    • Enhancing the graduate profile through a revised, more comprehensive transcript, aligning student expectations with defined graduate attributes and an electronic student portfolio
  • In 2019/2020 curriculum review exercises were initiated or were underway for at least 10 programmes offered by five faculties – Food & Agriculture, Humanities & Education, Law, Science & Technology, and Social Sciences.
  • The Student Administration System completed a review of pre-requisites for each course listed in the faculty booklets commonly used by students in the registration process, to ensure alignment with what has been approved by the Board of Undergraduate Studies (BUS) and with the information stored in the online Banner Registration System.

Alignment

  • In 2017 the Campus put together the elements of an Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) Ecosystem that establishes an effective pipeline for moving faculty and student ideation to economic impact. The long-term goal envisaged by the Campus is that its efforts would significantly contribute to the creation of a strong and vibrant net foreign exchange earning SME sector across the Caribbean by 2034. The I&E Ecosystem incorporates four main components: the network of Faculties, the Entrepreneurship Unit (EU) in the Faculty of Social Sciences, the St. Augustine Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (STACIE) and UWI Ventures. At the time of writing, the ecosystem is fairly well established and has achieved the following to date:

UWI Ventures

  • UWI Ventures Ltd is a holding company for UWI start-ups and spinoffs.
  • VenturesApp launched: An online digital support platform to register and support inventors, attract investors and track IP from ideation to commercial entry. The App received 50 registrants 1 week after launch.
  • Expressions of interest received to fund projects for commercialisation.
  • Signed MOU with Caribbean Industrial Research Institute (CARIRI) to collaborate on building out the national and regional I&E system.

Spinoffs

  • UWI Seal It Ltd. Manufacture and sale of asphalt based coatings and lubricants using IP developed in the Department of Chemistry. Board of Directors to be expanded.
  • IFCIC (approved for incorporation but with a name change). Manufacture and sale of fine chocolate and fine chocolate manufacturing inputs.

Pending Spinoffs

  • Panadigm Innovations Ltd: Manufacture and sale of the PHI electronic pan.
  • Service provision, sale and licensing of fingerprinting technology.

Licenses

  • Asphalt coating and lubricant derivatives to Lake Asphalt of Trinidad and Tobago. Royalty payments have started.
  • Service provision, sale and licensing of fingerprinting technology.

Patents Granted:

  • Phillips, L., et al., Fingerprint Classification System and Method using Regular Expression Machines, US 2017/0220836 Al.

Patents in Prosecution:

  • Ramsubhag, A., et al., Novel class of antibiotic adjuvants to treat drug resistant bacteria
  • Ignacio, D., et al., Novel treatment of Prostate Cancer using extracts prepared from a Caribbean plant
  • Singh-Gryzbon, S., Method to Minimize the Likelihood of Thrombosis in Heart Valve Implementation
  • During the review period, STACIE was called upon to manage UWISTA's collaborative COVID-19 response, in the production of alternative supplies of personal protective equipment (PPE) and medical equipment. A key requirement was that these were to be manufactured at very short notice, locally and at low cost, while meeting or exceeding globally accepted industry health, safety and environment (HSE) standards. Items considered included face masks, face shields, N95 respirators, video laryngoscopes, and ventilators.
  • A multidisciplinary team of engineers and medical professionals was assembled, and a partnership was created with private sector companies with capacities in manufacturing, procurement, funding, and technical expertise. This also provided an opportunity to create a new industry in Trinidad and Tobago, in line with national economic diversification goals. Thus far, the exercise has yielded a second license agreement for the St. Augustine Campus – this time with the Label House Group – for the production of face shields. This agreement is the first between the Campus and a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME).
  • The Entrepreneurship Unit (EU) at the Department of Management Studies engaged in several activities to boost entrepreneurial skills among students, staff and alumni. They included:
    • a six-module Entrepreneurship Master Class Series for roughly 30 UWI alumni
    • the Coaching and Mentorship programme for students using the UWI Ventures Virtual Incubator Platform attracted applications from more than 50 students
    • coaching services to the Cocoa Research Centre (CRC) to support the International Fine Cocoa Innovation Centre (IFCIC)
    • a Business Partnership Proposal developed for the CRC to provide cocoa nibs to Angostura Holdings Ltd.
  • The Internal Process Review project subcommittee is mandated to complete a detailed review and analysis of student administrative processes such as Recruitment, Admissions, Examinations, and Graduate Studies.
  • During the review period, the Examinations Section, with the support of the Bursary, implemented an online payment store where, for the first time, local and foreign users could use their credit cards to pay for frequently requested services such as certified copies of examination documents, transcripts and verification letters, re-markings of examination scripts, courier fees, and certificate replacement.
  • To improve the registration system, the Student Administration System completed a review of pre-requisites for each course listed in the faculty booklets commonly used by students in the registration process, to ensure alignment with what has been approved by the Board of Undergraduate Studies (BUS) and with the information stored in the online Banner Registration System.
  • The Financial Processes committee developed an Activity Based Costing (ABC) model to determine the true cost of running a programme. The exercise revealed that administrative costs represented a significant proportion of programme costs and this will be the focus for future follow-up initiatives. The ABC exercise was first carried out at those Faculties whose programmes are CGC funded i.e., all Faculties but the Faculty of Medical Sciences (FMS), which has focused on the development of a strategy for improved financial solvency through expanding intake to the global education market. In this regard a Special Meeting of University Council on January 21, 2021, approved the following:
    • The establishment of the proposed UWISTA Global School of Medicine as a school within the Faculty of Medical Sciences at STA. NB: The proposal described several scenarios with the base scenario targeting an annual intake of 120 students yielding 18% IRR and an EBITA in Year 6 forecasted at TT$105.3M along with a surplus after tax of TT$59.1M
    • The UWI to seek to raise a bond of TT$335,000,000 on the Trinidad and Tobago capital market to finance the development of the proposed school.

Council further recommended the convening of a steering committee formed jointly with The UWI and the GORTT represented by the relevant government ministries and state agencies to ensure high level engagement and partnership with the GORTT to secure the necessary conditions required to enable success of this new venture.

University Finance and General Purposes Committee Meeting of October 2020 approved the Business Plan for Financial Solvency for the School of Dentistry. The plan was based on an increase in full fee-paying foreign students to 35 and a reduction in local/regional intake to five over five years. Enrolment is limited primarily by the number of dentist chairs available. The business model requires an initial capital investment in the sum of TT$11M and a requirement for the offset of the annual losses during the years that the plan is implemented and the school increases its income. Breakeven would occur in the fifth year. At that time, the total additional cash injection is estimated at TT$44.2M but the total additional income would be TT$46.9M. Profit in Year 7 is estimated at over TT$11M.

Agility

  • On March 13, 2020 the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago announced that effective March 14, 2020 all educational institutions across Trinidad and Tobago would be closed for an initial period as the country recorded its first case of COVID-19. Two weeks later the Campus moved from 34% online courses to almost 100% with training provided for both staff and students. Examinations and other services and processes followed suit. The campus was all but deserted, save for security, ICT, bursary and other critical staff.
  • The Campus supported the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health in several ways including:
    • Use of halls of residence and dormitories for quarantine and step-down facilities
    • Use of Couva Multi-Training Facility for COVID-19 patients
    • Medical analytical, testing, laboratory access, and public communications support
    • Engineering design of PPE and ventilators to offset international supply chain restrictions o Recruiting of more than 100 nursing students in the District Health Visiting programme to conduct contact tracing for the Ministry of Health
  • The 22-member National COVID Recovery Task Force appointed in April 2020 included Chancellor Robert Bermudez; Professors of Practice Gerry Brooks (co-Chair) and Winston Dookeran along with Karl Theodore, Professor Emeritus and Director of the Centre for Health Economics; and other distinguished alumni and current and former adjunct members of staff.
  • Five members of the Campus community were appointed to the UWI COVID-19 Task Force: Professor Christine Carrington – Molecular Genetics and Virology, Professor Christopher Oura – Veterinary Virology, Dr. Katija Khan – Clinical Psychology, Professor Terence Seemungal – Pulmonology, and Dr. Gabrielle Hosein – Gender.