NIA CHARLESTOWN NEVIS – Premier of Nevis the Honourable Mark Brantley and his colleagues in the Nevis Island Administration (NIA) Cabinet met with two representatives from the Dalhousie University at the Cabinet Room on Tuesday, September 09, to discuss opportunities for tertiary education for Nevisians.
Dalhousie University Chancellor Dr Rustum Southwell and Dr Alice Aiken, Vice President of Research and Innovation, were accompanied by His Excellency Samuel Berridge, High Commissioner of St. Kitts and Nevis to Canada.
Premier Brantley welcomed the delegation to Nevis and thanked the Dalhousie representatives for taking the time to introduce the Halifax-based University to Nevis and discuss possible areas of interaction and partnership.
“Dalhousie University is very well known; it has a phenomenal reputation as one of the leading tertiary institutions in Canada. We are delighted to have you here and look forward certainly to what opportunities there may be for partnership between us and Dalhousie University.
“I think that our students on the island, our young people especially, who are anxious to study abroad would very much like to know what is on offer, what the opportunities might be, and also those who are pursuing careers in academia may want to engage.”
Chancellor Southwell, son of National Hero the late Right Excellent Sir C.A. Paul Southwell, said the familiarization mission to Nevis has significant meaning to him as his mother was from Nevis and he cherishes his childhood memories of fun experiences on the island.
He informed me that the iconic 200-year institution has many types of disciplines and faculties that would be of interest to young persons on Nevis.
Dr Aiken outlined some areas of study offered at Dalhousie, which is a fully comprehensive, research-intensive university that provides professional schools including medicine, law, architecture and planning, standard programmes of science, dentistry, arts and social sciences, as well as faculties of agriculture, engineering, and computer science, and comprehensive health and medical research.
“So we are comprehensive. We attract students from all over the globe, and we have students from over 100 countries attending Dalhousie University. We think it enriches our campus experience.
“We also have several areas of research that we think are of interest to St. Kitts and Nevis, in particular around agriculture. In Nova Scotia, we are land mass and population-wise quite small and so we do a lot of high-yield precision small-scale farming research and vertical farming, things that are much more relevant to smaller countries or countries that have a lot of small farms. Also, we are the number one university in Canada and number sixteen in the world for ocean science and oceanography…We do a lot of marine mammal tracking, a lot of aquaculture and all things ocean including the impact of climate change on coastal communities.”
Dr. Aiken also highlighted the scholarship opportunities for foreign students which are listed on the university’s website.
Present at the meeting in the NIA’s Cabinet room at Pinneys Estate were the Honourable Spencer Brand, the Honourable Jahnel Nisbett, NIA Legal Counsel Mrs Helene Lewis, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education Ms Zahnela Claxton, and Principal Education Officer Ms Londa Browne.