MONTEGO BAY, St James — CHIEF Executive Officer of Sandal Resorts International (SRI) Adam Stewart has attributed the phenomenal growth of the University of the West Indies Mona, Western Jamaica Campus (UWI WJC) to regional integration.

“This university is showing CARICOM (Caribbean Community) at work,” Stewart emphasised.

Stewart, who was delivering the keynote address at the UWI WJC Opening Ceremony for the academic year 2014-2015 on the weekend, challenged the nearly 100 first-year students “to do what they are actually good at and play their role in the development of the region”.

“Most of us here are from the Caribbean and we have a way of living in the Caribbean and believing that what we see around us as status quo — is what it is going to be and what it must be. You guys are growing up in a time, as I have, that is very different to the last 50 years. The world today is completely different from what it was 10 years ago, or even 15 years ago,” the SRI CEO said.

The WJC, established in 2008, which sits along Queen’s Drive in the resort town, overlooking the Sangster International Airport, recorded a 50 per cent growth in the number of undergraduate students registered for the academic year 2014-2015, over the previous year.

According to Dr Luz Longsworth, the UWI WJC campus director, the institution has also seen an increase in the number of students from across the region this year.

“When we started in 2008 we started with an intake of 172 students. Last year our intake was approximately 200 students, this year we have over 300 students, who have accepted places at this campus — a 50 per cent increase,” Dr Longsworth declared.

“In addition, this year we are seeing a growth in the number of regional and international students coming to this campus, with students representing Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos, Trinidad and Tobago, as well as students from the Dominican Republic, Nigeria and the United Kingdom.”

Dr Longsworth also announced that new programmes have been added to the curriculum this year.

“This year we will be adding new programmes in Mathematics, Actuarial Sciences, Entrepreneurship, International Relations, Operations Management and others. There are new minors in entertainment and cultural enterprise management, cultural studies, and there are new courses in gender and development studies, Spanish and Mandarin with French to be added in the next semester,” the UWI WJC campus director stated.