University bulletin: NCU Bulletin - We are the champions!

Northern Caribbean University (NCU) is once again national and regional champions in the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition. The winning team (Team Educ8) defeated several teams from El Salvador, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic and two other teams from NCU. The NCU Imagine Cup team will travel to Poland to represent the nation and the region in the world finals from July 3-7, 2010.

"The administrative body of the University is proud of the products of our computer and Information Sciences Department," said Dr Herbert Thompson, president of NCU.

"The fact that since 2005 we have dominated the Microsoft Imagine Cup competition for Jamaica, the Caribbean and Latin America, speaks volumes that NCU is the information and computer science giant of these regions. It is also significant for Jamaica because it happens at a time when we are losing many other things as a nation, and this University continues to keep Jamaica in a prominent spot before the rest of the world and has given all of us something to celebrate."

The string of 'firsts' continue: Team Educ8's members are Trevoir Williams (first student to qualify twice for world finals), Caray McKenzie, Warren Robinson (first sophomore on the Imagine Cup Team) and Trecia Thompson (first female to make the Imagine Cup Team). The team named its software project "eSCAPE" (Electronic School Computer Aid for Primary Education) which is designed to teach literacy at the primary school level.

"I applaud all our teams who competed in the regional finals for their outstanding effort and accomplishments," said Kenrie Hylton, chair of the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at NCU. "This has once again highlighted Jamaica's potential to make a significant impact in the global information technology industry."

Team Xormis from NCU finished second, making it the first time in the competition's history that one institution has produced the two top teams in the region - an unprecedented and momentous achievement, both for NCU and Jamaica. Legos was the other team which competed in the competition.

"Having two teams from Jamaica, ranking first and second, underscores the fact that we have extremely talented and tech-savvy youngsters in Jamaica who are able to innovate and develop world class technology solutions. In fact, we will be hosting our Technology Camp from July 18- 23 at the university's Mandeville campus so that others can discover and develop their information technology potential," added Hylton.

This is the sixth time in six attempts that NCU has been national champions (2005-2010) in the competition. Four of these six teams have been regional champions. In 2007, the NCU Imagine Cup Team ICAD brought glory to the nation and the region when it placed third in the world finals in South Korea.

The Imagine Cup, a global student-technology competition, encourages individuals worldwide to apply their creativity to technology innovations that provide solutions to real-world issues.

• UTech Focus - Faculty-evaluation seminar coming soon

The University of Technology (UTech) Jamaica, Human Resources Department, will host a two-day seminar, 'Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System', from May 26-27 between the hours of 8:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m. each day in the Alfred Sangster Auditorium, Papine campus.

Raoul A. Arreola, Professor Emeritus of the University of Tennessee, USA, and author of the text, Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System, will be facilitator at the seminar, which has been specially designed for academic administrators and faculty members with responsibility for evaluating staff and/or faculty development. Professor Arreola, who has more than 40 years experience in the design, development and operation of faculty evaluation and student-rating systems in more than 300 colleges internationally, will expose participants to proven, research-based procedures for generating faculty-evaluation systems responsive to the needs of educational institutions.

For further information and registration, contact Norma Messam-Hinds or Janet Barrett at 512-2007 or 512-2813, respectively, or visit the UTech website at: www.utechjamaica.edu.jm.

• Coaches graduate from UTech coaching school

Fifty-nine football coaches received certification to coach at local and international levels at the graduation ceremony for the UTech/JFF/JMMB Advanced Level II football coaching course held on Tuesday, May 11, at UTech's Papine campus. The coaching course, which was conducted in February in Montego Bay and Kingston, was delivered in collaboration with football's world governing body, FIFA.

Captain Horace Burrell, president of the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF), in his remarks said he was proud of what has been achieved. "I think we as Jamaicans have continued to set the trend," he said.

He pointed out that FIFA visited the training school and examined the curriculum and went back to Zurich with a view to implement it as a part of its own curriculum for other countries around the world. Professor Errol Morrison, president, UTech, in congratulating the graduates, welcomed them as alumni of the university and encouraged them to pursue further studies at UTech in the area of Sports Sciences or other areas of interest. The new Bachelor of Science degree in sports sciences offered by the Faculty of Science and Sport, will commence in September 2010. It has been designed to provide hands-on practical experience for practitioners in various areas of sport and will be delivered over four years on a full-time basis.

Of the 61 participating coaches, which included two females and approximately 15 former national players, 59 were awarded certi-ficates of achievement, having completed all modules of the course.