The College of The Bahamas (COB) has moved one step closer to becoming a university.

COB announced yesterday that its College Council has established a Secretariat to help it “envision the character and design the roadmap” to the University of The Bahamas.
Professor Olivia Saunders, Higher Education and Development Policy specialist, Dr. Joan Vanderpool; archivist, Antoinette Seymour; administrative assistant Sandra Dean-Smith, and Associate Professor and legal advisor, Rubie Nottage make up the Secretariat.
COB said the Secretariat will ensure that the voices of administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni and external stakeholders receive full consideration in the “conceptualisation of the character” of the University of The Bahamas.
The Secretariat has to incorporate a number of elements when drafting a roadmap for the transition.
The new university must have the profiles of matriculating students; the ideals of the university’s programmes for developing matriculates spiritually, socially, and intellectually into graduates; locations and physical characteristics of campuses to support these programmes and an endowment trust for the university.
The Secretariat also has to ensure there are minimum student tuition and fees in place; foreign exchange programmes; development needs of The Bahamas; human talent and skills, and physical resources needs.
It has to incorporate the mandates of the minister of education, take into consideration the strategic plan of 2009-2019 and the work of previous consultative committees and task forces, including but not limited to the final report of the Ad Hoc Advisory Committee on Governance of June 2007, Task Force on Academic Quality Assurance Committee of September 2007, and the Task for on Higher Education August, 2005.
“The Secretariat shall consult with internal and external stakeholders, and review best practices of regional and international tertiary institutions, document the process followed by the secretariat in coordinating the envisioning of the character of and the roadmap to The University of The Bahamas, submit written quarterly progress reports to the Council culminating in recommendations for implementation to the Council within 12 months and deposit the organised archive of the work of the Secretariat in the Harry C. Moore Library of The College within 16 months,” a statement said.

The College Council approved the Secretariat on July 11.

COB was established by an Act of Parliament on October 30, 1974.