New operating base for UWI Vice Chancellery
Published:Sunday | February 27, 2011 | 12:00 AM
The regional administration of the University of the West Indies (UWI), the Vice Chancellery, is being relocated from off the main Mona campus in Kingston to premises now under construction nearby.
The new operational base will consolidate campus administrative functions, in line with a recommendation on improving the regional institution's governance structure, dating back 26 years.
The current vice-chancellor is Professor E. Nigel Harris.
The Vice Chancellery development, sited opposite the main campus, is funded by the Caribbean Development Bank with a loan to the UWI of US$8.25 million and a grant of US$500,000 - which together converts to J$752 million - under the University of the West Indies Enhancement Project.
The guarantors are the governments of Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
Director of the Vice Chancellery, Nella Stewart, says the idea is to create "an enhanced capacity for strategic management of the UWI".
The project which, is slated to run for 18 months, includes the construction of a new vice chancellery of 6,635 square metres in a multi-level structure.
Kier has been hired to do the construction, which is now under way. The cost of construction was not made available.
The building will sit on 4.8 acres of land immediately opposite the UWI's Queens Way entrance on southern side of Hermitage Road. The current Vice Chancellery offices will be relocated from the upstairs of the Assembly Hall on campus to the new site.
current accommodation
A newsletter produced for the project indicates that the current accommodation for the Vice Chancellery is "inadequate and overcrowded to the extent that the efficiency of its daily operations as well as the functioning of the university's key processes are severely affected".
The project includes plans to enhance productivity by consolidating the various dispersed functions in a modern building, improvements to its communication strategy and human resource and risk management systems, and the training of financial records management systems personnel. UWI also indicates that the project will see the development and implementation of "a research and innovation action plan", a maintenance policy for the UWI, and the creation of a maintenance plan for the Vice Chancellery.
Ancillary works on the site will include widening of the Hermitage Road adjacent to the site, traffic control elements, sewerage connections and connection to public utilities.
"Governance reviews commissioned by successive vice chancellors have enunciated the need for an improved environment to support the administrative and governance functions of the Vice Chancellery and to enhance its strategic role and importance within the institution and the region," said the Vice Chancellery newsletter.
"The 1984 Governance Report, in particular, recommended establishing a separate facility for housing the Vice Chancellery, which would be independent of the Mona campus, but nevertheless, located within the confines of the existing property to maximise operational efficiencies."