Today, St George’s University (SGU) announced that it will continue to provide online distance learning for all students for the April 2021 term.
While the goal is to eventually return all students to campus as soon and as safely as possible, students in the School of Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine, and School of Graduate Studies will continue exclusively via online distance learning throughout the spring. Students in the School of Arts and Sciences will continue to have access to minimal in-person classes.
As vaccines have become available in some countries, there is renewed hope for a return to normalcy on the horizon. However, the leadership of SGU remains concerned about the current worsening status of the Covid-19 pandemic in many countries around the world and the emergence of new, more infectious variants of the virus. SGU is evaluating the potential for students to return to campus in Grenada in the summer if vaccination is widely available.
Although Grenada has few active Covid cases currently, many members of the SGU community live in or travel through countries where the cases of Covid infection are poorly controlled or where these new variants have led to increased infection rates. It is with this knowledge and out of an abundance of caution for students, faculty, staff, and the people of Grenada that the University has made the decision to continue limiting access to campus for now.
SGU will continue to collaborate with the Government of Grenada and provide updates on its public health response to combat the spread of the virus. This collaboration will help inform decisions and assist in determining when conditions allow for additional students to return to campus.
SGU looks forward to reopening the campus as soon as it is safe to do so. The leadership of SGU is hopeful that as the vaccine distribution takes on momentum, they can consider a safe return to campus in the summer, and at least by the start of the August term. The next decision about returning to campus will be made in May 2021.
SGU
I have a question related to this article. Is SGU’s Doctor Modica, Grenada Ambassador at Large, a medical doctor? I ask because I read he is not a doctor, but is a “doctor of jurisprudence”. The holder of a law degree. Not a medical degree. In much of the world, a lawyer who insisted upon being addressed as “Doctor” would be greeted with sniggering. If he is not a medical doctor, then why does he, at his own insistence (presumably), go by “Doctor Modica”.
Has he no shame? Does he hold the people of Grenada in lower regard than those from the country in which he was born and raised?
In the legal setting he surely would not go by the title “doctor”, and it would be highly unethical to do so in the hospital. In the academic setting, though, I don’t find it unusual that someone with a terminal degree would call himself doctor. Most professors do.