Seventh-day Adventist Northern Caribbean University, a multi-disciplinary institution with an enrollment of some 4,500 students, recently inaugurated a School of Religion and Theology, or SRT.

Dr. Herbert Thompson, NCU president, said “a new day” had dawned on the campus with the opening. He added that SRT, which currently has 169 students enrolled, would offer a doctorate degree in theology by summer 2004.

Speaking with the Adventist News Network, Thompson said that “although today we offer degrees in about 25 to 28 different areas, our area of religion and theology is still paramount because we believe that, amidst our academic offerings, we still need to keep in focus the fact that we are a Seventh-day Adventist institution, and that ultimately we are preparing men to be like their maker as we look to the second coming.”

Dr. Trevor Gardner, vice president for academic administration at NCU, said he expected the religion and theology school to train persons other than ministers of religion, such as psychologists. “It is a day of celebration, and I am excited,” he added.

Dr. Patrick Allen, chairman of NCU board, noted that the Mandeville-based university remained one of the few institutions that the larger society still regarded as “upholding the traditional principles upon which an orderly society depends.”

According to Allen, many people in society held the view that things “seemingly are falling apart ... because the center will not hold.” He said that within this context the 84-year old institution has a duty to the island and the Caribbean region to maintain “high Christian, ethical, social and moral standards.”

The former West Indies College, operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, was upgraded to university status in 1999.