By Hayden McKenna

Accidents of birth, the fact or fiction of kismet, fate versus agency, the unforgiving, unrelenting metronome of life’s clock, good luck, tough luck, and the untamed caprice – sometimes tyranny – of serendipity and opportunism are existential mysteries that without faith, the meaning to living would remain an estranged fugitive-at-large. Let us not over-think this though. The intention here is far more light-hearted. All of this metaphysical waxing is simply to say that it is extremely doubtful that any of the almost 750 freshers among us this year, intentionally purposed to graduate in the Class of 2027 – the class of our university’s centennial! Yes in 2027 our beloved USC celebrates 100 years of existence. Follow the simple math; the freshers of 2023 possess – by dint of accident of birth or matriculation – the unique and significant claim to being members of the presumptive centennial class.

In human reckoning – across time, geographies and cultures, 100 of almost anything is significant – not 94, at least 100!  Generally though, there is almost unanimous consensus that 100 metres in track and field, 100 runs in cricket, 100 reps at the gym, 100 miles of cycling, even £/€/$100 (depending on the currency) is significant or valued. When it comes to years, our relatively short lifespans rarefy the triumph of surviving for 100 years. A 100^th anniversary or birthday truly matters. At the University of the Southern Caribbean, we can expect that everything will be bigger brighter and better in 2027.

When the topic of our quickly arriving centennial and the beginning of the incubation of the Class of 2027, was recently broached with University President, Dr. Colwick Wilson, he re-joined with his trademark enthusiasm:

 I wish I were graduating during the year when the institution celebrates 100 years… It would be a graduation experience like none other…It seems as if that embedded in the psyche of the populations of the world is this notion of what happens within a century…There is something distinctive about getting to 100. It is a marker of significance in all of our memory and all of our lives.  There is that social-psychological reality that allows people to pause and say wow, thank God for 100 years.

Dr. Wilson went on to point out that in USC’s lived history, there have been classes that have been special because of the institutional milestones attached to them. There was the very first class that entered East Caribbean Training School. The first class to graduate from Caribbean Training College, the first class to graduate with a bachelor’s degree, the first class to begin a bachelor’s degree at CUC and complete it, the first cohort of students to graduate with a USC conferred master’s degree, the first batch of nurses to graduate. Institutional milestones embellish some classes with special memorability – perhaps none more so than the Class of 2027.

When asked about some of the unique things the Class of 2027 can look forward to during their four-year tenure at the university, Dr. Wilson projected an exciting 48 months ahead.  On November 18^th and 19^th of this year, we can expect to see the soft launch of the university’s centennial celebrations, with its supporting capital campaign and the Get on the Bus (GOTB) 2023 initiative.

Sub-committees drawn from a broad cross-section of the university community, including administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends of USC, have been formed and are being formed to plan-out a slew of activities for 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, and 2027. In the 2026 – 2027 academic year, in every month there will be a major activity leading up to graduation weekend and the Founders’ Day climax.

In this academic year, there will be a major international research conference on the campus to mark Charter Week in the month of March 2024. At that conference, the David Williams Centre for the Study of Religion Spirituality and Health and Well-being will be launched. The conference will also feature national, regional and international scholars and presenters. It is the intention for this international conference to become an annual fixture of the university’s calendar.

In the lead-up to the centennial, students can look forward also, to more opportunities to engage in research. Dr. Wilson said that “research will be integrated into the curriculum. Students will be trained at a higher level to get involved in research through the curriculum and also outside of the curriculum, in areas that they are interested in”.

The improvement of the aesthetic, functionality, efficiency and quality of campus infrastructure will also be pursued through a programme of campus beautification, renewal and development. On the main campus, the Campus Beautification Sub-committee for instance, has already begun working on proposals for the remodelling of the main entrance to the campus.

A top priority of campus renewal for our president is creation and/or enhancement of student spaces on the campus. Dr. Wilson mentioned plans to develop places where students and others could take good photographs, have social gatherings and events, “spaces where students can document memories of their time here at USC… green spaces on campus where students can sit and fall in love…”

A major recipient of the funding to be raised by the capital campaign mentioned earlier, would be a state-of-the-art health and wellness centre to be built where the de-commissioned Linda Austin Hall now stands. Amenities would include a modern gym, a swimming pool, a basketball court, lawn tennis and volleyball courts. Speaking of this facility, Dr. Wilson said “that is where our number one centennial building is expected to be.” Speaking also of plans to have the playfield resurfaced and lit, he said “we have to have a place on the campus where -individuals – young people and older people are able to recreate.”

Dr. Wilson spoke also of plans for the improvement of other aspects of campus infrastructure. There are about 19 buildings earmarked for renovations and upgrades. There is the need to complete the unfinished Dean’s quarters, and the annex to the ladies’ residence hall, up on cardiac hill.  The music building will also get some attention and alas, the weather-worn foundation to the northwest of the secondary school would be given newness of life. The electrical power on the campus will also be upgraded to meet present and future needs. All of this will be pursued within a framework that is committed to a greener more energy-efficient campus.

Campus development will not be confined solely to the main campus. The needs of the extension campuses and satellite sites are well known and understood by the university’s administration. There are ongoing negotiations with government bodies at the various locations to improve the endowments of land for expansion and development of our remote campuses.

The Caring University Church building project, which is the shared responsibility of the university, other denominational stakeholders and the congregation itself, is another aspect of campus development that can be expected to be completed before the university’s centennial year. Dr. Wilson expressed a commitment to support this project through fundraising and personal efforts.

The development of the university’s human capital is also a priority of the centennial vision. There will be a special emphasis on leadership development.  Dr. Wilson in commenting on this aspect of the centennial trajectory said:

I think there are a number of individuals on this campus, if given the right exposure and experiences… would be excellent candidates for the job of leading this university into the next fifteen to twenty years. I think we have to invest in them. We are going to start a leadership academy with a sub-theme of transition.

Members of faculty and staff can look forward to opportunities for specialized training, upskilling, meaningful mentorships and exposure to leadership building experiences. The first instalments of the training the academy will offer, comes as soon as this November 3^rd and 16^th.

The university structure has also been modified in order to improve its prospects for delivering a superior USC as it enters its second century. A new administrative division dedicated to advancement and planning has been created. This division, headed by the very experienced Dr. Barbara Reynolds, will ensure that the university becomes adept at multi-tasking the urgency of its present operational functions with its intentional pursuit of planned progress.

Deeper, more constructive community involvement is also on the institutional agenda. Dr. Wilson spoke with passion about finding novel ways for the university to become more meaningfully involved in its immediate community and further afield, in the nation and the region. The TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic, recently opened in the heart of the Maracas Valley is one example of a greater commitment to community engagement. At the ceremonial opening of the clinic Dr. Wilson spoke about USC’s almost 100-year relationship with the Maracas Valley community. He promised that “USC, is here to stay and will grow bigger, stronger and more involved in the community… We will invest in getting deeper into the community to provide the resources the community needs across multiple dimensions…” he said. Many of the other capital project mentioned previously, will also be designed, built and deployed with the benefit of the wider community also in focus.

The centennial vision, even in the face of scarce resources, is ambitious, bold and affluent in faith. Persuaded by God’s awesome faithfulness over the past 96 years, there is a composed confidence that God is not finished yet with miracle valley.

The Class of 2027, enters USC at a time of unparalleled excitement and opportunity. If you are a fresher this year, you belong to a special class that is destined to be remembered. Spare no opportunity to do remarkable things during your time here. Embrace this journey for all that its worth and do not disembark before you have travelled beyond excellence.

By Hayden McKenna

On Sunday 17^th September 2023, The Community Hospital of Seventh-day Adventist (TCH), in partnership with The University of the Southern Caribbean (USC), formally opened the TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic, located opposite Gate 2 of the USC Main Campus on Maracas Royal Road, St. Joseph Trinidad. The opening was a significant community event for the people of Maracas Valley and environs and further afield.  It involved an open-house type health fair where community and other attendees received the benefits of free vision and health screenings, consultations and nutrition and health and wellness counselling.

On the surface of it, this is a simple, seemingly non-newsworthy matter of a local private hospital becoming the operator of the university’s primary health care service. It is that, but in this case, it is so much more. What this joint-venture represents, is the first public showing of an emerging strategic, functional and sociable partnership between two aged and very experienced, community oriented, Seventh-day Adventist institutions in Trinidad and Tobago and by extension, the Caribbean Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists.

The University of the Southern Caribbean, through its various names and stages, has been in existence since August 27^th 1927. The Community Hospital – though officially opened on December 02, 1962, first admitted patients a few months before on September 17^th 1962, seventeen days after Trinidad and Tobago became an independent nation. TCH is therefore the oldest existing private hospital in Trinidad and Tobago and September 17^th, the date chosen for the opening of this clinic, is an important date in TCH’s history. USC and TCH when combined, can boast of a service legacy of more than 150 years in Trinidad and Tobago. The value of aggregating 150 years of multi-sector service experience in a society as diverse as Trinidad and Tobago is hard to overstate. This is what this emerging partnership brings to the market.

USC and TCH also have a shared philosophy, value-system and worldview. They are both Seventh-day Adventist institutions. Adventism at its core, teaches that education is inextricably connected to human redemption and restoration. It also teaches and health and wellness are the “right hand of the gospel” – no offense intended to the south-pawed. Education and health and wellness are inseparable parts to the human-redemption and restoration project in the Adventist worldview. This fundamental combination is a tried and tested formula. In the very Adventist-influenced Loma Linda University community in San Bernardino, California for instance, research shows that where these factors are strongly combined, residents on average, live for up to ten years longer than the national average. Loma Linda for this reason, is the sole blue zone community in the USA. Can the USC-TCH partnership in Maracas Valley be nascent brush-strokes-of-blue-zoning in miracle valley? Maybe.

The presence of a well-staffed first-class medical clinic, backed by the resources of TCH, offers to USC students, faculty and staff and the communities of the Maracas Valley and its environs, the security of a readily accessible urgent and preventative healthcare facility. According to TCH’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Stephen Carryl, the location and context of this Maracas Valley clinic, have already attracted meaningful discussions with the Ministry of Health about the provision of services to special niches of the wider population of the country.

Apart from the clinic, the USC-TCH partnership will also result in the strengthening of the practical elements of USC’s existing and emerging curricula in the areas of Nurse Education, Allied Health, Occupational Therapy, Social Work, Business Management and even Computer Science, through the offer of internships to USC students and other forms of mutually beneficial engagements. This has already begun and will be deepened in the medium and the long terms. Referencing TCH’s present efforts to digitize all of their medical records for instance, Dr. Carryl pointed out that a project such as this, would be a fertile place for students of Computer Science and IT to see such a process play-out and to participate in the same.   Dr. Carryl envisions TCH and USC having a strategic relationship where “USC students would have a home at TCH where they could come here and rotate”. TCH can emerge as a teaching hospital for USC students.

The USC-TCH partnership will also create a robust research ecosystem on matters of interest to both institutions, the nation and the region. Building capacity in this area, is critically important to a post-colonial region of the world, whose populations continue to present live artefacts of a difficult past, manifested in epidemics of obesity, chronic non-communicable diseases, high rates of alcohol consumption and endangered mental wellbeing.

Backstory: God’s Will and a Cedar Hall ‘Bromance’

With all of these compelling reasons for co-operation, the question of why this is happening now and not before, is difficult to dodge.  The default answer for people of our faith tradition, is that nothing good happens outside of God’s willing and out of sequence with the fullness of time.

In July of 2021 and June of 2022 respectively, while the world, our region and nation were still grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, both USC and TCH experienced transitions in top leadership. Dr. Colwick Wilson was appointed President of USC and Dr. Stephen Carryl was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of TCH. These two visionary leaders have a long ‘bromantic’ history with each other.

The back-story is that they have maintained a close mutually supportive friendship for more than forty years. They both entered Caribbean Union College (now the University of the Southern Caribbean) in 1979 as Theology Majors and lodged together, at the famous Cedar Hall.  As “Noble Spartans’ of that famous residence hall, their early friendship would most probably have been negotiated over shared meals and sack-lunches, worship services, chapels and weeks of prayer, and a miscellany of other joys and irritants of dorm life. Indeed, it was at a Graduation Ceremony they witnessed together that Colwick intimated to Stephen his special attraction to the President’s regalia, especially the gown with its unique four-stripped festooning on its sleeve. Hmmm.

Though these classmates were separated when Dr. Carryl switched his focus to Biology and departed for Oakwood College (now Oakwood University) in 1981, they both sustained their mutual friendship and never lost touch, despite their divergent career paths. Dr. Wilson graduated from CUC with his Theology degree in 1983, pastored briefly in Guyana and in 1986 migrated to the United States to further his education in the Social Sciences. This he did to the level of a terminal PhD degree, which he received from the University of Michigan. Dr. Wilson has enjoyed a fruitful academic and leadership career at prestigious institutions in the US, including the University of Michigan, Loma Linda University, The Kettering Health Network and most recently, he held the Provostship at Oakwood University. 

Dr Carryl, after completing his baccalaureate degree at Oakwood, went on to Loma Linda University School of Medicine, where he earned an MD. His education and career journey also includes a Master of Health Administration (MHA) from the University of Southern California, Surgical Internship and Residency at the Brookdale University Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York. Dr Carryl is a board-certified surgeon with expertise in Laparoscopic Surgery, Bariatric Surgery and Robotic Surgery. He rose to the position of Chairman of Surgery, Chief of Perioperative Services and Director of Bariatric Surgery at Harlem Hospital Center, before taking on the less lucrative job as CEO of TCH.

When directly asked about what prompted the partnership between USC and TCH at this moment, Dr Carryl characterised it as “divinely inspired”. Referring to his enduring friendship of over forty years with Dr. Wilson and the coincidence of both of them being back in Trinidad and Tobago at the same time to lead two significant Adventist institutions, Dr. Carryl conceded that “we know we weren’t smart enough to orchestrate something like this”.  

Dr. Wilson in responding separately to the same question, said that “it was Spirit-led. I really think God’s Spirit was speaking to him as He was speaking to me at the same time”. Dr. Wilson shared that when Dr. Carryl came to Trinidad to take up duty at TCH, they were house-mates at the President’s Residence on the campus of USC. They would almost nightly have dinner together – Dr. Wilson doing most of the cooking – and they would talk about the challenges and opportunities facing their organizations. This led to a clarity that co-operation could create a whole that was greater than the sum of the parts. They began with the easier things. TCH was engaged to run USC’s health care service. This partnership would later become more organized and focused. There was the selection of a joint leadership team and a thoughtful expansion of the menu of services to be offered. Informal conversations at a cricket tournament organized by USC for the Maracas Valley community and the expression by villagers of the need for an accessible clinic in the area, added refinement to and popular confirmation of the rectitude of a plan already in train. The TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic is the maturation of that process that most probably began with a conversation between two friends over a meal that Dr. Wilson claims to have cooked.

TCH’s Present Trajectory

Dr. Carryl speaks with a persuasive passion of the intention to aggressively pursue initiatives to re-establish TCH as “a premier provider of quality healthcare in Trinidad”. According to Dr. Carryl, there are three deliverables that form the basis of TCH’s present focus They are: Quality healthcare, good patient experience and affordability.

TCH medical staff boasts of highly qualified surgeons, specialists and physicians. The Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Damaris Baptiste-Sylvester for instance is a Consultant Obstetrician-Gynaecologist and Gynaecologist-Oncologist trained in the Caribbean, North America, and the UK. For good measure, she is also a USC alumna.

TCH is one of only a few hospitals in the Caribbean that now operates an in-patient rehabilitation clinic, particularly directed at victims of stroke. This service is led by US-trained and certified Trinidadian Dr. Gerard Antoine. With several decades of experience with the US military, Dr. Antoine is the only rehabilitation physician in Trinidad.

There is also a drive to ensure that TCH is on the cutting edge of modern diagnostic and medical technology. Dr. Carryl said that if there are 100 things you should expect from a modern hospital, TCH must be able to do no less than 90 of those things. Significant capital investments are being made to upgrade the hospital’s capacity in this area.

Under Dr. Carryl’s leadership, TCH developed and implemented a programme that is unique among private hospitals in the country and perhaps the anglophone Caribbean. Through a Behavioural and Mental Health Department, every patient that visits TCH gets a psycho-social assessment to ascertain what else is happening in their lives that needs to be addressed apart from their medical condition. This programme is led by Dr. Joanne Williams-Carryl a Social Worker and Therapist and the spouse of Dr. Stephen Carryl. This special department and unique programme have created valuable opportunities for internships for USC’s Social Work Majors. This approach will also be brought to the TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic.

Dr. Carryl describes the healthcare sector in Trinidad and Tobago as a “productive place” for private operators. He pointed out that the costing of services at TCH is consistently below prevailing market rates. This allows for TCH to price its services in a way to achieve profitability and growth without taking away affordability from customers. “We are not mercenaries. We are not in the business of losing money but we do not have to make the most money” he said. This approach has attracted insurance companies that are excited to work with TCH and bench mark some of their products based on TCH’s pricing structures. TCH is also unashamed of its Adventist ethos and sees it as a differential advantage that sets it apart from its competitors.

Commenting specifically on the TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic and what it means, Dr. Carryl said he sees the clinic as an extension of the main hospital into the valley. It is consistent with TCH’s strategy to expand its footprint in Trinidad and Tobago. He described the clinic as “the down-payment on an investment in this community”. 

As USC moves towards marking the first 100 years of its existence in 2027, it is delighted that at this critical time of its own transformation, it has found in TCH, an equally progressive, values-compatible, well-led partner. The TCH-USC Urgent Care Clinic is a signal manifestation of great things to come for both institutions and the publics they serve.