The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI) has signed a Stu­dent Mo­bil­i­ty Agree­ment with Cana­da’s Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo (UW). 

The two Uni­ver­si­ties met vir­tu­al­ly on Thurs­day 5th May, for the sym­bol­ic sign­ing of the agree­ment where Dr Sta­cy Richards-Kennedy, Pro-Vice-Chan­cel­lor of Glob­al Af­fairs, signed on be­half of the UWI, and Pro­fes­sor Char­maine Dean, Vice-Pres­i­dent, Re­search and In­ter­na­tion­al penned the agree­ment on be­half of UW. 

In a press re­lease to­day, UWI not­ed that the agree­ment will strength­en op­por­tu­ni­ties for in­ter­na­tion­al­iz­ing ed­u­ca­tion­al pro­grammes through stu­dent mo­bil­i­ty ini­tia­tives, aimed at de­vel­op­ing glob­al cit­i­zen­ship, in­creas­ing adapt­abil­i­ty, cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty, and in­ter­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills. 

The pro­gramme fa­cil­i­tates both stu­dent ex­changes and study abroad op­por­tu­ni­ties, and ap­plies to cours­es with­in the Fac­ul­ties of Hu­man­i­ties and Ed­u­ca­tion, So­cial Sci­ences, Law, En­gi­neer­ing, and Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy at the UWI, and the Fac­ul­ties of Arts, En­vi­ron­ment, Health, Math­e­mat­ics, and Sci­ence at UW. 

Com­ment­ing on the ini­tia­tive, Dr Sta­cy Richards-Kennedy not­ed, “The sign­ing of this agree­ment with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo is tes­ta­ment to our com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al­iza­tion, to ex­pand­ing glob­al ed­u­ca­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties for our stu­dents, and to deep­en­ing re­la­tions with lead­ing uni­ver­si­ty part­ners.” 

Pro­fes­sor Char­maine Dean al­so notes that “The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wa­ter­loo is ex­cit­ed to work with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners... The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies is one such part­ner, and we look for­ward to deep­en­ing our strate­gic re­la­tion­ship as we ex­plore more mean­ing­ful col­lab­o­ra­tions in the years to come.”