The?University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with top universities throughout Britain, Europe and North America to pave the way for a successful launching of its certificate, Bachelor’s and Master’s in sports science.
The news of the programmes, which will commence next week with the certificate course, with the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes being offered in the next academic year, came Wednesday from principal of the Cave Hill Campus, Professor Sir Hilary Beckles.
He noted that this academic component of sports was phase three of a determined effort by Cave Hill to be a premier institution of excellence.
Sir Hilary ticked off the boxes in outlining that phase one entailed the establishment of the campus as the site of excellence in cricket performance and programmes; phase two involved the building of first-class facilities in all sports.
“The finest soccer field in the Caribbean now stands proudly at Cave Hill – a FIFA-approved first-class synthetic turf, designed and laid out by the best sporting engineers in the world. The Soccer Academy is now in place and will now move into top gear.
“The hockey field has added considerable value to the sport at campus and in the country.
“The Ryan Brathwaite Athletic Track will be completed in a few weeks – a magnificent blue and yellow Regupol high-technology Olympic-standard track approved and recommended to the university by the legendary Usain Bolt,” said Sir Hilary.
While outlining the sporting success of Cave Hill, particularly capturing the inter-campus title, as well as the inter-campus staff championship in spite of having much smaller numbers than Mona and St Augustine, Sir Hilary constantly caressed the campus’ most recent acquisition – the Sagicor General Super Cup.
The Cave Hill head indicated that the campus’ sporting achievements were financed totally by the students’ amenities fund, which was resisted in its earliest stages but was not only bearing fruit but was being copied by other institutions.
He said the new programme had seen Cave Hill engaging Loughborough University, and signing MOUs with Leeds Metropolitan University, the leaders in sports studies and performance in Britain; New Brunswick University in Canada; George Mason in the United States; Jyvaskyla University in Finland, one of the finest sports universities in the European Union; the famous Sports Management School of Paris and the Aarhus University in Denmark.
“This is a remarkable alliance of sports expertise now placed at the disposal of the Cave Hill Campus – an achievement that recognizes both campus leadership, as well as the Caribbean as the richest source of sports talent in the world,” added Sir Hilary.
There are four components of the programme: introduction to sport management; introduction to sport psychology; sociology of sport; and sport marketing.
In giving Government’s support for the new initiatives, Minister of Sports and Youth Stephen Lashley lauded the efforts by Cave Hill to educate Barbadians and the region on the business component of sport.
