USC joins in mourning the sudden passing of alumnus Pastor Livingstone Aaron
The University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) is saddened by the recent passing of its alumnus, Pastor Livingstone Aaron. We join with several others in expressing our deepest condolences to his wife Cynthia (also a graduate of CUC/USC), his close relatives, friends and ministerial colleagues.
According to a release by the Caribbean Union Conference (CARU), at the time of his sudden passing, Pastor Aaron was serving as pastor of the Stroudsburg district, which includes the Stroudsburg, Pocono Grace, and Mount Pocono Haitian churches in the Pennsylvania Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in the United States.
Prior to migrating to the US in 2013, Pastor Aaron served as the Director of the Caribbean Union Revolving Fund (CURF) and is credited as an architect of its growth to redoubtable viability. Before his elevation to that directorship at the CARU, Pastor Aaron, a native of Antigua and Barbuda and a member of a prominent Adventist family there, served with distinction in pastoral ministry in the North Caribbean Conference.
Pastor Aaron’s formal preparation for ministry began at Caribbean Union College (now USC) in the second half of the 1970s. Among his contemporaries at CUC, was Dr. Colwick Wilson, the current President of USC. Dr. Wilson remembers his college-mate as “a diligent worker, a creative mind, a dedicated student… He was a friend of all. He consistently built relationships with others. He was passionate. He was clearly a man ahead of his time.”
Livingstone Aaron graduated as a member of the Class of 1982 with a Bachelor of Theology degree. With an unabated passion for ministerial preparation, he went on to Andrews University, Michigan, USA and there earned a Master Divinity degree in 1985. In 1990, he received the sacred rite of ordination.
Pastor Livingstone Aaron, in his life and career, modelled the USCian ethic and was an extraordinary servant of God to humanity. He had also grown accustomed to hearing and submitting to the voice of his Heavenly Father. That voice he will hear again on that great getting-up morning, and by the force of habit, he will respond in obedience and with victory over the sting of death. Let us all be comforted by this blessed hope.
- Published in News, Office of the President
Postponement USC for SVG Telethon
Owing to the rising COVID-19 infection rates in Trinidad and Tobago and consonant with the newest restrictions announced by the Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago on Monday 03rd, May 2021, the USC for SVG Telethon carded for Sunday 09th May 2021 has been postponed to a future date to be determined and announced. We truly regret the disappointment this message brings.
The USC for SVG Campaign however remains active and cash contributions and pledges can still be made to emergency relief efforts. For further details kindly visit https://usc.edu.tt/uscforsvg.
Thank you for continuing to support our neighbors in SVG.
WE’RE IN THIS TOGETHER
- Published in Corporate Communications, News
USC for SVG Telethon
The effusive outpouring of love, support and assistance for our neighbours in St. Vincent and the Grenadines reminds us that in the Caribbean we are stronger together. SVG will need us for the long haul – we cannot and must not stop!
Many of us are still searching for other ways in which we can contribute more to ongoing relief efforts for SVG. Here is one more: On Sunday 9, May 2021, the University of the Southern Caribbean as part of its USC for SVG Campaign will host a 12-hour telethon from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. The telethon, themed We’re in this Together will feature:
• More than 100 artistes from the Caribbean and its global diaspora in multiple genres of music and spoken word poetry.
• Ground-reports from residents and relief personnel by in SVG.
Members of the viewing and listening public will be afforded the opportunity to pledge contributions of cash and kind to sustain relief efforts for our neighbours. Our goal is to raise a minimum of TT$500,000 in cash pledges through this venture.
For further details and how to contribute, please visit https://usc.edu.tt/uscforsvg.
Follow us on social media for updates, announcements, live interviews, and information on how you can contribute to the USC for SVG Campaign.
#uscforsvg #strongertogether
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Josh Rudder
Coordinator, Corporate Communications / Coordinator USC for SVG Telethon
University of the Southern Caribbean
Mobile: 1-868-474-1181
Email: uscforsvg@usc.edu.tt
- Published in Corporate Communications, News
MP Joins USC for SVG Campaign
Member of Parliament for Tunapuna and Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives in the Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, the Honourable Mr. Esmond Forde visited the main campus of the University of the Southern Caribbean with his hands full of relief supplies bound for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
A significant share of the Maracas Valley community lies within the constituency of Tunapuna. While the main campus of USC sits on a bare edge of the neighbouring St. Ann’s East constituency, the Maracas Valley community is not cloistered and contained by borderlines and polling divisions – nor should it be. USC is therefore by no means surprised at Mr. Forde’s choice to join the USC for SVG Campaign through this generous donation to our neighbours in SVG.
Mr. Forde’s passion for and devotion to community work is well known to us. We experienced it first in his capacity as a Councillor in the Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation and now in his second consecutive term as the Member of Parliament for Tunapuna. Up-scaling the reach of his work to a Caribbean neighbour found in season of great need seemed predictable.
Last week USC shipped a fully laden container of bottled, potable water to SVG. We are in the process of mustering cargo to ship a second container of relief supplies and equipment there by Tuesday 27th April 2021. We are therefore extremely grateful to Mr. Forde and by extension the people of Tunapuna, for attending to the needs of our neighbours in SVG through the USC for SVG Campaign.
- Published in Corporate Communications, News
Temporary Closure
Owing to a confirmed COVID 19 infection of one member of office staff stationed in the USC Administration Building, out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of the welfare of employees and stakeholders, effective April 21, 2021, until Thursday 29, April 2021, the USC Administration Building will be closed to employees of USC, students and all members of the public. This temporary closure is to facilitate a thorough sanitization of the building.
Employees normally stationed at the administration building will work remotely. Students and members of the public are encouraged to utilize our live chats and email platforms to access services during our ordinary business hours.
Please be guided accordingly.
Regards,
Corporate Communications Department
- Published in Corporate Communications, News
USC for SVG
It is with grave concern that the University of the Southern Caribbean (USC) witnesses the unfolding natural catastrophe on the island of St. Vincent. Our value for human life and our Caribbean citizenship compel us to join the relief efforts directed at our distressed neighbours.
The USC for SVG relief initiative, in its first week, will deliver a substantial financial contribution, denominated in United States Dollars, for the procurement of critical relief supplies and amenities including but not limited to, water and storage tanks, shelter furnishings, personal protective equipment (PPE), detergents and personal care items. Our financial contribution will be matched by our parent organization, the Caribbean Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists (CARU). Our goal is to ship a 40-foot container of these supplies to SVG by or before Friday 16th April 2021. Our corporate private sector partner, Trinebox/Trincargo Shipping has pledged logistical and freight support to this project. A detailed inventory of the supplies we intend to gather is available on or website usc.edu.tt/uscforsvg.
An online telethon hosted by USC’s Music Department is also being coordinated. Members of the public will be afforded an opportunity to pledge financial support to the USC for SVG Relief Fund. Appropriate donations in kind will also be welcome.
For more details on the USC for SVG Campaign, our further activities in the coming weeks and how you can partner with us to help to push back the distress of our neighbours, please visit the USC for SVG portal on the USC website www.usc.edu.tt/uscforsvg or contact Robert (724-5201) Onesi (688-4244), Josh (474-1181).
- Published in News, Office of the President
USC Stands with St. Vincent & the Grenadines
The University of the Southern Caribbean views the unfolding dramatic events in St. Vincent & the Grenadines with great concern for the Vincentian population in general and the students of this University in particular.
Our prayers are being offered continually that the evacuation process would go smoothly and that there would be no injuries or loss of life. We also pray for calm in the country and that God will continue to guide the Government as it endeavors to make the best decisions for its people in these stressful times.
The University of the Southern Caribbean stands ready to assist in whatever way it can to bring comfort to the people of St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
- Published in News, Office of the President
Dr. Colwick Wilson Elected the 29th President of USC
After an extensive international search and the diligent screening of candidates, the Board of Trustees of the University of the Southern Caribbean has voted to appoint Dr. Colwick Mervyn Wilson as the 29th President of USC. Dr. Wilson, an alumnus of Caribbean Union College (now the University of the Southern Caribbean) is of Guyanese heritage. His career journey has honed for him an impressive vita of academic and administrative experience and professional renown that robustly positions him to advance USC’s global reputation and stature.
Dr. Wilson is appropriately qualified for the challenge before him. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts (Honors) Degree in Theology from Caribbean Union College, now USC, a Master of Arts in Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, a Master of Arts Degree in Leadership and Counseling, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, Michigan, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Dr. Wilson comes to us from our sister Seventh-day Adventist university, Oakwood University, Alabama where he has been serving as Provost and Senior Vice President since the fall of 2017. Before his appointment at OU, he also served in leadership and academic roles at Loma Linda University, California and the Ohio location of Kettering Health Network. He also possesses non-denominational academic experience, and served as an associate professor at the University of Michigan.
An ardent researcher, Dr. Wilson has a strong record of executing solo research projects and participating and leading research teams. His published work appears in several peer-reviewed journals and he has been quite active as a presenter and participant on the academic conference circuit particularly in the areas of social and health sciences. Dr. Wilson is also very experienced in successful proposal and grant writing and has served as the principal investigator for single and interdisciplinary grant awards.
Dr. Wilson is a visionary, innovative, and collaborative leader with an extremely engaging personality. He is the consummate professional and places premium value on the spiritual well-being of the people he leads and interacts with. This is not at all surprising, since his earliest academic degree was in the field of theology and in the nascent phases of his career he served as a pastor – a calling he has not since relinquished.
Dr. Wilson is married to Dr. Deleise Cole-Wilson. They have two adult daughters: Chidinma and Corliss.
Dr. Wilson is expected to assume duty on July 01, 2021. The USC family and constituency welcome Dr. Colwick Mervyn Wilson and his family and wish them God’s blessings as they take up the mantle of leading this illustrious institution “Beyond Excellence”.
- Published in News, Office of the President, Programs, Stories
International Women’s Day 2021 #ChooseToChallenge
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day (IWD). The administration, faculty and staff of the University of the Southern Caribbean wholeheartedly embrace this opportunity to celebrate the being and contributions of our women-folk to our families, workplaces, schools, churches, villages, nations, and the innumerable other physical and relational spaces where humans practice community.
The accepted origins of the celebration of IWD goes back to 1909 when at the suggestion of the Ukrainian-American labour-activist, writer and suffragette Theresa Serber Malkiel the Socialist Party of America – yes socialist and yes United States of America – observed what they called a “National Woman’s Day on the last day of the month of February that year, a Sunday. New York City was the epicenter of that antecedent observance. It was an election year, and as pervasive and bi-partisan as ‘progressivism’ had become to mainstream American politics, women’s rights, worker’s rights and that of minorities remained subordinate to affluent white patriarchy, leaving many in the US undone, disappointed and disenfranchised.
The historically busy Atlantic Ocean would transplant the idea to the European continent and on March 19, 1911 International Women’s Day – so named – was observed for the first time by more than a million people in several European countries. Like in the USA – where there continued for quite some time to be the celebration of National Women’s Day on the last Sunday in February – in Europe, too, the focus of the observances centered around protests against the political disenfranchisement of adult women, gender discrimination in the workplace and the inequality of opportunities to prosper.
Unsurprisingly, with the triumph of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, IWD was accorded the status of a public holiday in that country. This pattern would accompany the national adoption of socialist-communist ideology in various other countries in Eurasia as the Soviets expanded their sphere of influence.
In the late 1960s and into the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of what is sometimes referred to as the second wave of feminism, when equal pay, the push back against violence against women, maternity benefits, sexual and reproductive rights and other such contemporary rights-issues for women and girls were being intellectually developed into their existing form, IWD was wrested from the social communist world and globalized. It was during this period that it was belatedly adopted by the United Nations in 1975.
For us in the Caribbean, grappling as we still are with emancipation and postcoloniality, living with our hard-wired histories that include conquest, enslavement, indentureship and the ruthless exploitations of our land and our labour by foreign capital interests, our appreciation of IWD must not be permitted to come from the artificial place of an adopted narrative of a comparatively recent exposure to abuses and troubles. It seems that our people, our women are, and will be, because they never surrendered and habitually and courageously “#choose to challenge”.
- Published in Faculty, News, Office of the President, Stories
Intellectual Debating is Alive & Well at USC
On Thursday November 12, 2020, at 2:30pm, the University of the Southern Caribbean Economics Department fielded a team of debaters in the annual COTE Tertiary Debating Competition.
The theme: Be it resolved that International Financial Institutions are crucial for mitigating the impact of the Corona Virus pandemic in the Caribbean.
The USC Debating Team was comprised as follows:
- 1st Speaker for the Proposition – Gershom Byng
- 2nd Speaker for the Proposition – Mickael Walters
- Team Researcher – Velvet Benicourt
We looked forward with great anticipation to maintaining the Championship Trophy but alas our opponents, UWI Roytec edged us out in the finals. We congratulate them on their success! Though securing the 2nd place, the USC team is confident that at the very earliest opportunity, they can reclaim the trophy at the next debate.
Dr. Stephen Pilgrim, recently appointed Professor of Economics, was the lead coach for the team and he was ably supported by the Chair of Department – Esther Cedeno as well as, the Acting Dean of the School of Business & Entrepreneurship, Sherri-Lyn Legall. We also acknowledge the sterling contribution of Duane Winchester, an adjunct Economics Lecturer in the School of Business & Entrepreneurship. We also express thanks to Mr. Dwight Francis and team, as well as several others for their invaluable support in preparation for the day of the Debate.
The spirit of togetherness and positivity was very real among the team members, and among the Economics students as a whole, who regularly attended debate practice sessions, along with the teachers indicated above. The determination of the Economics debaters, augers well for the future of the Economics Academic Program at USC. It is the hope that this form of intellectual curiosity and rigor would characterize a desirable style of learning throughout USC, going forward. Further, we hope to strengthen the pursuit of scholarly research and raise awareness and enthusiasm among students and faculty alike.
We salute our team!
- Published in News
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