Cornwall College gets refurbished chemistry lab
ST JAMES, Jamaica – Cornwall College has received a fully refurbished chemistry laboratory at a cost of $5.1 million from the school’s old boys.
At the recent official handing-over ceremony, principal of Cornwall College, Michael Ellis, expressed gratitude to the old boys from the parent body in Montego Bay and chapters in Kingston and North America, who pooled their resources to fund the renovation of the facility.
“I am very happy this morning that you are delivering a brand new facility, so to speak, and my job is to ensure that it is used as a tool to educate our young men and to produce more scientists, not only for Montego Bay, not only for Jamaica but for the world, and I can guarantee you that it will be used accordingly,” Ellis stated.
“All the old boys’ chapters worked together to make this project a reality, it’s better late than never…if we are going to continue our thrust of refreshing the school and retaining and regaining some of our lost pride, certainly in the area of science, then certainly we have to do so with 21st-century facilities.”
Robert Smart, president of the South Florida chapter, said it was nostalgic to be back at the laboratory.
“It’s an awesome achievement to have it completed and at a stage where it is functional and students can do work in there,” he said, adding “the next step is to look at other labs in the school that might need work, hopefully we can get some work done on them so they are all functional,” he said.
Dr Richard Meggo, chairman of the board at Cornwall College, said members of his group have their minds set on refurbishing other science facilities at the school.
“The next big assignment for us after this in terms of addressing the sciences at Cornwall College, is to renovate and upgrade the physics lab and the integrated science lab in the lower school, so we will be calling on the old boys again to help us and to collaborate with these projects,” said Meggo.
The refurbishing work on the chemistry lab included replacing the work stations, installing new electrical and plumbing fixtures as well as new chairs.
