History of NCU

Northern Caribbean University had its beginnings in the late 1800’s when Seventh-day Adventist missionaries from the United States of America started working in Jamaica. It was following the arrival of George E. Enoch of the North Pacific Conference in the USA on July 4, 1898 that the first conversations of establishing a school to cater to the needs of local church members started. The fruition of that dialogue was the 1907 opening of West Indian Training School, on the Willodene Estate property, located in the parish of St. Catherine, Jamaica. Following relocation in 1908 to a 507 acre property in Riversdale, in St. Catherine, and a temporary closure in 1913, West Indian Training School was reopened in 1919, this time to an even more favourable location in Coolsworthy, Manchester.

In 1936 the essence of the growth of West Indian Training School was captured in its new name, West Indian Training College, for by then it was offering courses up to the 14th grade level. Naturally then, as it moved up its offering to the 16th grade and was now offering its first bachelor’s degree it assumed a new name in 1959, West Indies College. This new era was to be the one that would usher in the ascension of local individuals to the seat of leadership for this thriving educational institution.

The presidents who have served since 1959 are L. Kr. Tobiasson (1959-1960), W. A. Osbourne (1961-1962), S. O. Beaumont (1962-1964), K. G. Vaz (1964-1970), C. D. Standish (1970-1973), L. H. Fletcher (1973-1980), H. L. Douce (1980-1985), S. A. Lasley (1985-1990), and H. J. Thompson (1990-to the time of this chronicling, 2011.) All things remaining equal he should serve until 2015, the time of the next quinquenial, which will be the first for the Jamaica Union Conference, Atlantic Caribbean Union Mission of Seventh-day Adventists, the operators of NCU, who took over from West Indies Union, which was dissolved at its last Union Session in November 2010.

Before 1959 the presidents who served this educational movement are C.B. Hughes (1907-1920), W. H. Wineland (1920-1927), F. O. Rathbun (1927-1929), O. W. Tucker (1929-1930), R. E. Shafer (1930-1933), H. D. Isaacs (1933-1938), R. S. Hamilton (1938-1939), F. S. Thompson (1939-1940), M. J. Sorenson (1940-1944), C. L. Von Pohle (1944-1945), B. G. Butherus (1945-1951), M. J. Sorenson (1951-1958), W. A. Sowers (1958-1959).

June 1999 was the year that West Indies College came full circle when the Government of Jamaica gave it its charter to operate as a university, at which point it assumed its current name Northern Caribbean University.

Four years following attaining university status, 2002, NCU offered its first doctoral programme – a PhD in Education.

The attaining of university status has been a signal milestone of this educational institution, which was created with a vision of transforming the educational, social, physical, and spiritual experience of the peoples of the Northern Caribbean region and the world. Northern Caribbean University, Ubi Semper Discimus (Where Learning Never Ends).