THE Universtiy of the West Indies (UWI) and the State University of New York (SUNY) recently signed an agreement to further strengthen their relationship amidst gains from joint projects in areas such as marine studies and cardiovascular health.

Vice-Chancellor of the UWI, Professor E Nigel Harris, and Chairman of the SUNY Board of Trustees, Carl McCall, reiterated their commitment to strengthening the relationship, which began in 2013, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) providing the framework for new collaboration.

Prof Harris said, the UWI is seeking to leverage what we are doing in the Caribbean with what is taking place in the USA. We have significant synergies with SUNY in marine studies and open or distance education. We have a Seismic Research Centre in Trinidad and SUNY has an Earthquake Centre.

Noting that the SUNY system encompasses 64 institutions with a total of 463,000 students and 7,500 degree programmes across New York State, Prof Harris said that the UWI which covers 16 countries in the Caribbean, the largest university system in the region, is looking for possibilities for growth and funding.”

For his part McCall said that “the emerging partnership” between SUNY and the UWI had benefited greatly from “the visionary and dedicated leadership of Prof Harris”.

“In New York we have large constituents of Caribbean people who make outstanding contributions to the USA and there is a lot of work being done in the Caribbean that is of interest and relevance to them,” the SUNY Chair said.

Presenting reports on UWI/SUNY projects already implemented, Director of the Centre of Marine Sciences, UWI Prof Dale Webber Dr Marshall Tulloch Reid, Dr Ishtar Govia of the Tropical Medicine Research Institute (TMRI) and Lecturer in the Department of Physics, Dr Tannecia Stephenson reported on work in their respective areas.

Dr Webber said that the Centre had developed with SUNY’s Stony Brook University a course on “Marine Invasive Alien Species” which would look at the waters around the Caribbean and New York, and could be offered across many campuses.

The TMRI has begun gathering quantitative data from local populations and Caribbean migrants in the USA and is working closely with other UWI campuses, SUNY’s Buffalo and Brooklyn Universities, in gathering primary data from focus groups and collating existing literature that will assist in the management and treatment of cardio vascular diseases and related illnesses such as diabetes.

Dr Stephenson said that discussions were advanced on sources of funding and the co-authoring of a journal on Caribbean climate and projections for the future.

Meanwhile, the UWI/SUNY agreement came in for high praise from the Vice- Chancellor designate of the UWI, Sir Hilary Beckles and the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, Global Affairs, SUNY Sally Crimmins Villela.

“The future is in the moment,” said Sir Hilary. He congratulated Prof Harris and the team at Mona for the work already done with SUNY, adding that there was scope “to take the partnership beyond projects. With concern across the region that the development thrust of the Caribbean has slowed, UWI, as the driver of nation-building, will work to build out institutions to sustain and surround these important projects.”

Crimmins Villela said, “We want to ensure our graduates are prepared for global careers — in a linguistic sense and a cultural sense. A Stony Brook student who comes to the UWI Marine Lab is sure to have a totally different perspective from one who does not have that opportunity.”

Areas for collaboration to be explored under the expanded UWI/SUNY agreement include agro-technologies and food security, information and communication technology (ICT convergent applications), cultural industries and the arts, history and Africana studies and pharmacy.