MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Recently retired president of the Catholic College of Mandeville, Sister Una O’Connor well remembers the beginning 22 years ago.

“We started very small, the whole point being to provide qualification for teachers who were not trained, and we had just 18 students in our first class,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

O’Connor, an Irish-born member of the Roman Catholic Passionist Sisters with a PhD in chemistry, has played a key supervisory role as the college, funded by the Roman Catholic Diocese, grew in student numbers, academic offerings and physical infrastructure.

In 2013, the Catholic College, which has an academic partnership with the Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, moved from its old campus on Caledonia Road in Mandeville to Williamsfield where it remains a work in progress on nine-and-a-half acres

of land.

“Now we have grown to 500 or so (students) and

we have accredited programmes,” she said following the recent launch of two new training portfolios focusing on agricultural science and physical education/sport.

The new courses constitute another step in what O’Connor said is the Catholic College’s mission “to go to other areas besides teacher training programmes”.

As explained by Paul Thompson, Registrar at

the Catholic College, programmes such as those launched recently “will give us new emphasis, so it is not a teacher’s college, it is a college offering a variety of disciplines.”

The agriculture course, an Associate of Science in Agriculture, has already started.

“We intend that programme will last for two years and then we move on to the Bachelor of Science in Agriculture,” Thompson told journalists at the recent launch.

Scheduled to begin in January is a diploma in coaching and a diploma in sports massage therapy. Those courses will be run in association with the Spanish Town-based GC Foster College of Physical Education and Sport.

Together with the launch of the agricultural and sports programmes was a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new science laboratory.

“What we are hoping is that this science lab will provide opportunities for both the agriculture students and the sports students and also

for teacher education programmes,” Thompson said.

In recognition of the prevailing economic hardships, the Roman Catholic Diocese has provided grants of $150,000 each for 10 students who have started the agriculture courses.

“It’s for basic equipment which the agricultural students will need,” explained O’Connor.

Specialists from within and outside the Catholic College are supervising the agricultural science courses. Experts from GC Foster will assist the sports and physical education programme, journalists were told.

While there is space on the nine-and-a-half acre property for eventual development of a sports facility, the Catholic College is contemplating use of the nearby Kirkvine sports complex for practical activities.

“Kirkvine is under-utilised and it might be possible to partner (with them),” Member of Parliament for Central Manchester, Peter Bunting said at the recent launch.

Bunting and Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay said that the diversified expansion of the Catholic College fitted the vision of Manchester becoming a leader of Jamaica’s knowledge sector in the post bauxite/alumina era.

“This development takes us another step forward in rounding out the offerings in the context of education,” said Bunting.

At the Catholic College, that ’rounding out’ will include, according to Thompson, the sourcing of “healthy donations” for physical expansion of the Williamsfield campus, including an audio-visual room, a multi-purpose room and cafeteria.

For O’Connor, who said that she felt “accomplished” and was contemplating “putting together a history” of the institution, new goals, even in retirement, will include helping to raise funds for continued expansion.

“It’s like we are at another beginning,” she said.