St. George's University is a private medical school and international university in Grenada, West Indies, offering degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, the health sciences, nursing, arts and sciences, and business. St. George's University was established by an act of Grenada'sparliament on July 23, 1976. Classes in the School of Medicine began January 17, 1977. In 1993, the university added graduate and undergraduate programs. In 1996, it was granted a charter for the School of Arts and Sciences and a Graduate Studies Program. In 1997, undergraduate courses in international business, life sciences, medical sciences, pre-medical and pre-veterinary medicine were added. The School of Veterinary Medicine was established in 1999, as was the university's Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine.
St. George's University was founded on July 23, 1976, by an act of Grenada's Parliament, which was then effectively controlled by Prime Minister Eric M. Gairy.[2] The school was named for the capital city of Grenada,[3] but it was the brainchild of Charles R. Modica,[2] a 29-year-old lawyer and education entrepreneur.[4] Modica envisioned creating a for-profit medical school in the English-speaking Caribbean that would cater to academically qualified American students who failed to gain admission to medical schools in the United States.[2] Besides Modica, the other three original founders of the school were also from Long Island: Louis J. Modica, Charles' father[5] and a successful real estate developer; Edward McGowan, also a land developer; and Patrick F. Adams, a business lawyer.[citation needed][6] The university's corporate structure is currently held within Medforth Global Healthcare Education, which also operates the Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Parker, Colorado and in Ivins, Utah.[7]
Classes at St. George's School of Medicine began on January 17, 1977, with 125 students and six part-faculty.[4] Almost all of the founding faculty members had been educated either in the United States or Europe. By the early 1979, the school had expanded to 23 full-time faculty and about 600 island-resident students.[8]
On March 13, 1979, a Marxist-inspired revolutionary party forcibly overturned Gairy's rule. Despite the school's association with the ousted Gairy regime, it survived and prospered under the new prime minister, Maurice Bishop, because it generated significant income for the government and people of Grenada. The school amicably co-existed with the revolutionary regime until Bishop also became embroiled in a domestic leadership challenge four years later.[4][2]
On October 19, 1983, Bishop and seven of his closest supporters were executed by Army soldiers loyal to an insurgent element in Bishop's own party. To quell any mass protests, the island's military declared martial law and placed the entire island under a 24-hour, shoot-on-sight curfew.[9] The repression raised fears in the Eastern Caribbean that Grenada's turmoil would destabilize democracy and law and order in the entire region. In Washington, the Reagan Administration feared for the safety of 1,000 US citizens on the island (including students, faculty, families, etc.). The U.S. government, urged on by allies in the English-speaking Caribbean, launched Operation Urgent Fury on Oct. 25, 1983. The surprise invasion was an attempt to secure the safety of American nationals on the island, but also sought to restore Westminster-style democracy and evict the Soviet-Cuban presence on Grenada.[10][11]
The operation was supposed to have been essentially over in a day, but the invading multi-national forces ran into stiffer than expected resistance from the Grenada's People's Revolutionary Army and militarized Cuban workers on the island. On D-Day, the principal independent information coming out of the island was from a ham radio operated by a St. George's student.[12][13]
Because of an intelligence failure, the American-led forces landed on the island without knowing that the medical school had more than one campus. It took the invaders three days to reach all the students and staff on the island. Eventually 564 were evacuated back to U.S. soil without suffering any injuries.[citation needed][14]
In his memoirs, President Reagan recounted the return to the U.S. of the St. George's students as an event that affected him deeply. "I was among many in our country whose eyes got a little misty when I watched their arrival in the United States on television and saw some of them lean down and kiss U.S. soil the moment that they stepped off the airplanes that brought them home."[15]
Charles R. Modica, the school's founder and chancellor, initially criticized the invasion as "very unnecessary," but changed his mind the next day after receiving a private State Department briefing that convinced him the intervention was justified.[16] Classes were moved to Long Island, New York; New Jersey, and Barbados temporarily until 1984.[17]
In response to Hurricane Ivan in 2004, students were again relocated temporarily to campuses in the United States.[18] The school has a comprehensive hurricane plan in place currently.[19]
In August 2014, SGU received a $750 million investment[20] from Baring Private Equity Asia and Altas Partners, a Canadian private equity company whose other major investment is in a salt mining operation.[21] In August 2015, G. Richard Olds, the founder and past dean of UC Riverside School of Medicine, was named as the school's president and CEO.[22] Dr. Andrew Sussman, former executive vice president of clinical services for CVS Health, was appointed the university's CEO in May 2017.[23]
Campus
St. George's University owns 65 buildings on 42 acres of land, spread out in a peninsula in the southwest corner of Grenada located in the West Indies. A major campus expansion begun in the early 1990s resulted in 52 new buildings. The architecture of the buildings are of Georgian architecture.[24]
Academics
School of Medicine
St. George's University School of Medicine offers a Doctor of Medicine degree program that can be earned individually or as part of a dual degree with a Master of Public Health, Master of Business Administration, Master of Science, or Bachelor of Science.[25] The School of Medicine is accredited[26] by the Grenada Medical and Dental Council (GMDC).[27] GMDC has been recognized by the World Federation of Medical Education (WFME)[28] and the U.S. National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA),[29] a panel of experts organized by the U.S. Department of Education, which determined that GMDC uses standards that are comparable to the standards used to accredit medical schools in the United States.
School of Veterinary Medicine
St. George's University School of Veterinary Medicine (SGUSVM) was started in 1999, with the first faculty member Dr. Sunil Gupta, a veterinarian and anatomist, being tasked with forming a veterinary school. By 2011, the university had obtained probationary accreditation from the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), and it was awarded full accreditation in 2018. Additionally, the school obtained accreditation by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons (RCVS)[30] making it one of few schools to be accredited by both the AVMA and RCVS.[31][32]
School of Graduate Studies
St. George's University School of Graduate Studies (SGUSGS) is composed of 100+ faculty members and 300+ post-graduate students studying in excess of 200+ fields of research. The campus is also home to the Windward Islands Research and Education Foundation (WINDREF), a non-profit organization that is focused on "the promotion of health, well-being, and sustainable development through multi-disciplinary research, education, and community programs".[33]
School of Arts and Sciences
St. George's School of Arts and Sciences (SGUSAS) was started in 1996 and currently offers degrees in accounting, arts, biological sciences, business, chemistry, computer science, economics, English, marine sciences, mathematics, music, physics, and psychology.[34]
As of 2022, the School of Arts and Sciences also houses the university's Honor's college, which consists of the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) accredited honor's Bachelor of Science degree (BSc Hons) in Marine, Wildlife and Conservation Biology.[35]
Mt. Carmel waterfall located in the St. Andrew Parish of Grenada
↑ Magnuson, Ed; Redman, Christopher; McWhlrter, William (21 November 1983). "Getting Back to Normal". Time. Archived from the original on 14 February 2008. Retrieved 7 November 2007.
↑ Magnuson, Ed (7 November 1983). "D-Day in Grenada". Time. Archived from the original on 14 February 2008. Retrieved 1 February 2008.
↑ Correll, John T. (1 November 2012). "The Grenada Adventure". Air Force Magazine. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
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