From:TheBahamasWeekly.com
COB College Council Visits Gerace Research Centre, San Salvador
By Office of Communication The College of The Bahamas
Sep 28, 2012 - 12:50:04 PM
Council Chairman Mr. Alfred Sears meets Mr. and Mrs. Donald Gerace. The Geraces gave a presentation to the Council and senior administrators on the history of the Gerace Research Centre, research operations and available scholarships.
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San Salvador, Bahamas – The second largest
employer in San Salvador, the Gerace Research Centre (GRC) is more than
a thriving facility where new knowledge is produced by students and
faculty from colleges and universities around
the world. It has become a mainstay of social and economic vigor on the
island, with its impact clearly extending beyond the boundaries of the
former Bahamian Field Station.
Members of the College Council visited the Gerace Research Centre on September 12th
to hold their monthly meeting. It also provided the opportunity for
Council members to have direct contact with one of The College’s
centres for research in the areas of Archaeology, Biology, Geology, and
Marine Science and see its far-reaching influence.
One of the San Salvador Rock Iguanas at the centre of collaborative breeding programme at the GRC.
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College Council Chairman Mr. Alfred Sears
recognized the centre’s legacy of research and collaborations with
international universities. However, he envisions more synergy with The
College’s constituents in the future, especially
as the institution is preparing to become a university.
“Going forward we ought to integrate the facility into the mainstream of COB.
That is, it can offer COB the opportunity to have more clinical
learning experiences in science classes and other classes. It can also
provide more collaboration with COB’s faculty and the faculty of the
participating universities.
In fact, both at the faculty and student level there can be shared research,” he said.
The Gerace Research Centre, formerly the
Bahamian Field Station, is located on the shore of Graham's Harbour on
the north coast of San Salvador. The centre, which comprises 15
buildings on an 8-acre parcel of land, has been in
operation since 1971 and offers facilities for students, professors,
and researchers from around the world to study in a tropical
environment.
College Council members and senior COB administrators on a tour of the Gerace Research Centre (GRC), in United Estates, San Salvador.
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Mr. Dave Trydahl, Physical Plant
Manager at Gerace, led the Council and senior College of The Bahamas
administrators on a tour of the facility. He was eager to show not only
the field-station’s physical plant but also its
newest boarders – four iguanas being rescued from the brink of
extinction under a special collaborative initiative involving Loma Linda
University, CIBC and other partners.
“This project was started by Dr. Bill
Hayes from Loma Linda University who was the driving force behind
getting this project going.
What Gerace has really done to support the programme is the labour.
We’ve built the pens and we feed them daily and see to any health issues they might have.
We will be collecting the young ones when they hatch and we’ll
move them into small wire cages until they’re yearlings,” Mr. Trydahl
explained.
The San Salvador Rock Iguana is
listed as critically endangered and the programme at Gerace is designed
to help stabilize the iguana population and stimulate its growth.
This is just one way that the centre is integrated into the island’s sustainability and the wider community.
“We provide drinking water to the community. We host the ‘potcake’ clinics where ‘potcakes’ are spayed and neutered.
People come in and need welding and they stop so we can put air
in their tyres because there is no other place on the island to do
that,” Mr. Trydahl added.
Gerace is also a hurricane shelter and
through the faculty and student research groups that are regularly
hosted at the field station it – and by extension The College of The
Bahamas – provides a steady injection of tourism dollars
into the economy of San Salvador. Mr. Sears wants the community to be
even better served by the centre – through the steady generation of
research available to the local residents.
He added, “The centre is an important
component as we transition (to university) through consultation, because
it is a mechanism to accelerate the process of advancing the research
agenda of COB.
COB has established an excellent tradition in teaching and we
wish for an equal emphasis to be placed on research; research which is
geared towards examining all aspects of Bahamian life and informing our
understanding of this environment and our own
history.”
While
on San Salvador, the Council also met with Mr. Donald Gerace and his
wife who shared additional details about the centre’s history, research
operations and available
scholarships. Chief Councillor Mr. Clifford Fernander also took the
group on a tour of San Salvador.
The College Council is visiting all of The
College’s campuses and centres around the country to insect their
operations and connect with the surrounding communities. Council members
have already held meetings in Grand Bahama, location
of the Northern Bahamas Campus (NBC), and Andros, where the Bahamas
Environmental Research Centre (BERC) is located.
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