Dear Editor,
Today is a bitter/sweet 30th Anniversary Celebration for my person as a long- serving family member of our local university, University of St. Martin (USM). I have seen the university from its infancy grow into an adult educational institution over the years. I am very passionate to see our local university grow, but it is still to be recognized as our national university.
I am happy to see that our local university has graduated more than 750 alumni who hold key positions in the public and private sectors of St. Maarten. USM has produced some of St. Maarten's top Directors, Managers and Leaders within our community and government. USM needs to aggressively market its success rate through its Alumni Foundation.
Mr. Editor, I am very happy to celebrate such a big achievement, but the question that’s still lingering in my mind is the vision of where does USM go from here? Where would USM want to be in the next 5 to 10 years? Is government serious about moving forward to recognize our own national institution of higher learning on the island?
I can't understand why government finds it so hard to recognize and support our own institution. I was very amazed by government’s decision not to run all of the World Bank funded hospitality training programs through USM in collaboration with another foundation. I have seen our own USM family who was very vocal on these same abovementioned issues forget their own university’s struggles. While they moved into government, they just left USM in the hands of the government bureaucracy with no end results.
As a former MP, I tried my best to complete the legislation process to recognize our USM which is just stuck in the long administrative process. I am very disappointed on how we have treated our own local university over the years.
We can't just say we love our local university and have USM struggling for 30 years with their image and to be recognized by government, while still producing the best professionals in the region. Government needs to stop the patchwork and implement a structural solution of funding to our local university. USM has lost over the years some of its best Management Team members because of the lack of vision, seriousness and sense of direction of where we want to take our local university.
USM Board and Management also have a big role to play in revisiting their vision and social responsibility to our community. We need to get back to the vision instead of being all over the place with our curriculum and the future development of USM.
We need to get our successful Alumni Foundation more involved in marketing our university. I find USM is too passive in their approach of marketing USM to the public. We also need to stand up to any government to recognize and invest in their own educational institution.
USM’s Board also has to reactivate their Fundraising Committee to look for donations as other universities do with their Alumni Foundation. USM should get in contact with its Co-Founder, Ambassador Dr. Husang Ansary, and find out why he is donating millions to other universities in the United States and not helping his own local university that he helped co-found with the late Dr. Claude Wathey.
I find it amazing that none of our local representatives, who are close to Ambassador Dr. Ansary, never questioned him why he doesn't care about his own university. We need to stand up for our own local university!
In closing, as we celebrate our 30th Anniversary, let us start thinking of getting back on track of finally making USM the key to a brighter future. USM should be the corner stone to educate our people to become leaders of the 21st century. USM must be a top priority and not just a vision with a lot of talk without action by any government.
Maurice Lake
