Higher Education Was Also Leveled by Quake in Haiti

This New York Times article by Marc Lacey examines the state of Haiti's higher education system post-earthquake. It was a troubled education system before the quake. Now, buildings are destroyed. Faculty, administrators, and students are dead. Haiti's main nursing school and medical school are gone, as is the country's best computer school. One bright spot: Hundreds of students at the state university had left classrooms to protest at the national palace and were thus out of doors when the quake struck. Those higher education leaders who are left bemoan most the loss of life of many of the country's brightest students and potential leaders.

At St. Gerald Technical School, workers going through the wreckage with heavy machinery came across a classroom in which dead students were still at their desks. At Quisqueya University, much of the multimillion- dollar renovation work that had just been completed was shaken to bits. Joseph Chrislyn Bastien, 25, an engineering student, peered into a foot-high crevice of concrete where one could see shoes, books and flattened furniture. “This was a classroom,” he said.

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Regional SCUP Events! Enjoy the F2F company of your colleagues and peers at one of three SCUP regional conferences this spring:

• March 14–16: Baltimore, MD
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• April 5–7, San Diego, CA