The University of Belize's move to Belmopan will soon be complete meaning that in the next school year there will be dramatic changes in where students from various faculties will be receiving their instruction.
And continuing the orientation process, the University's management and the student government association today held two forums to ensure that students know where they'll be going to school next year.
This evening we caught up with the second forum that looks at how it will all work for faculties that will not fully move to the Belmopan campus.
Stephanie Young, UB Student-Government President
"The main reason behind it is that we wanted to kind of give students some feedback on what they can expect for those faculties remaining. Like how will student life be, how the facilities will change because you know a lot of students have concerns about if the facilities will improved like screens for the classrooms, more activities for students, student like on a whole. So those are some of the questions we will answer tonight and we want to get some of the ideas of what students would like to see for those remaining in Belize City."
Alfonso Noble,
"Have you an idea of which faculties will be staying here?"
Stephanie Young,
"Well all the part-time courses, social work - the faculty of management and social science both part time and fulltime at the Associates and Bachelor's level."
Alfonso Noble,
"Those are the only that will be remaining here?"
Stephanie Young,
"Yes and an aspect of the science and technology faculty will also be remaining which will be the engineering more than likely."
"Everything is not set yet. You are going to see students taking some classes in Belize City and they are going to make sure that whatever curriculum they plan, the course schedules are going to be set in a way to avoid clashes. You will be able to be back in Belize City in time to take a class. You will be given the opportunity to take that class. And because the process is still ongoing, they are still looking at how they could facilitate students that may have 1 or 2 classes left before graduation. What they are going to do is because summer classes have been extended, you might be able to take an early summer class to allow you to take that one class you have remaining."
"We have been working very close with administration to make sure that whatever we present at the forum is something that directly comes from administration. What we did is we went around and spoke to the President and the pro-vost and we gathered a panel so that all the panel will be able to address the concerns that students have."
"The administration has guaranteed that consultations will be ongoing. The president has said they will contact students via email, via phone calls, telephone conversations, and via letters and stuff to get the word out. I don't think the possibility exists to have another forum because as you realize we are almost at the end of the semester and a lot of students have classes they need to take and exam week is almost here. So I guess the word will be out through emails and telephone conversations."
This morning's session focused on the faculties that will move to Belmopan completely and how students and staff will work it out.