University gets grant to move College of Health Sciences

A grant from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries will allow the College of Health Sciences of the United Methodist University to be moved from Ganta United Methodist Hospital to a nearby location in Nimba County.

The grant was for more than $100,000 U.S., said Clinton Zeantoe, dean of the College of Health Sciences.

Zeantoe said the students need an independent space to enhance their studies. The relocation will provide adequate boarding quarters for the students and instructors, most of whom are from Monrovia. Zeantoe said boarding has always been a problem for most of their students and faculty members.

“When you have to study and think about where to lay your head at the same time, academic progress becomes really slow,” he said.

The grant will pay for classrooms, skills lab, two kitchens, a library that contains a computer lab, a generator house, and laundry facility for the dormitories.

University President Johnson N. Gwaikolo said the university authorities are grateful for the grant in improving the College of Health Sciences.

“Nursing is a national priority and contributing to it as an institution is one way The United Methodist Church in Liberia can promote a healthy nation,” Gwaikolo said. He also noted that relocating the health sciences college was significant to the capital campaign aimed at relocating all the university facilities from the city center in Monrovia.

“The better the health college campus, the better our capacity to develop the human resources of our students, in this case the nurses,” he said.

The church has decided to suspend a plan to relocate the Ganta hospital.

Health Sciences is one of the three colleges of the United Methodist University located outside of Monrovia.

Swen is a communicator in Liberia. News media contact: Vicki Brown, Nashville, Tennessee, (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free Daily or Weekly Digests