English version
The speech of the president: Dr. Jules Casséus - May 29th, 2009
jcasseus@ucnh.org , jcasseus@mac.com
GRADUATION AT NORTHERN HAITI CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY-UCNH, HAITI
Former Haiti Baptist Theological Seminary
MAY 29, 2009
MMM.
Its been 62 years since the founding of the Theological Seminary of Haiti, following the Faculty of Theology f the UCNH, 15 years of the founding of the Christian University of the North of Haiti. Hundreds of graduates in theology, management, education, secretarial, agricultural and fine arts, have been place on the Haitian labor market and from what we know, the results are positive so far.
We started the academic year 2008-2009 adopting a new organizational structure which included five vice-Presidents: Academic Affairs, Communication and Development, Financial Affairs, Student Affairs, University Services. For the first half, we had set up three of the Vice-President but following an administrative decision we were reduced to two: Vice President for Academic Affairs and Vice President for Communication and development. The Vice President for Financial Affairs, the agronomist Michael Lawson ,has been temporarily replaced by the manager Cameroonian Professor Abel Ngok Mollah. For the Student Affairs there is a committee of four professors who fill this role. For the University services, there is still no structure in place. It is therefore clear from the growth in student numbers, that we need more personnel with their Masters or preferably their doctorate to perform these functions, but also we need to find financial resources suitable to hire them.
In term of promotion on the administrative and academic level, Professor Monel Jules, one of the leading Masters at the School of Theology of the UCNH who assisted me as Vice-Dean for about three years, was since May 2008, promoted to Dean, which was done in the hope he would soon get his Doctorate in Pastoral Theology. It was also from these considerations that Professor Duky Charles another member of the first class of Masters prepared at UCNH, was promoted as Vice-President for Academic Affairs. The two will be getting their doctorate next week at North Western Seminary at the Bakke Institute in Seattle, Washington; Professor Gineville Jean-Louis, graduate of UCNH has his Master of Theology from the Faculty of Theology in Strasbourg, France. He has moved from the post of General Secretary to serve as Vice-President of Communication and Development. Finally, Professor Aubene Deshommes, another graduate at UCNH, with a Masters from Acadia University in Canada, rose from Assistant Dean to Dean of the School of Administrative Sciences.
While our program of Master f Divinity continues to attract our licensees in Theology and those from STEP-the Evangelical Theological Seminary of Port au prince with a total of about 26 students, we opened last June in collaboration with the University of Azusa Pacific (Azusa Pacific University), the program of Master in Organizational Leadership (MOL). The kickoff was started with 8 students, mostly missionaries. I want to remind you that all licensees of the UCNH, regardless of the option, can be incorporated into the program if they perform well in English and have passed the TOEFL with a score of at least 550 points. Until this only one of our licensees, the Agronomist Enock Firmin is benefiting from this program. He seems to fit in comfortably after the first two modules and has fulfilled the requirements without problems with the satisfaction of his teachers. We hope to have four other licensed: one in b management and three in theology to incorporate MOL for the next session of June. I advised the students to our four degree programs to take seriously the course of English that we give over a period of two years to qualify for this benefit. The students of Master in Organizational Leadership, MOL, should get their degree from the University of Azusa Pacific. I have to say in passing that if professors Monel Jules and Duky Charles will be able to receive their doctorate in about eight days in an English speaking University--- and in record time, it is because, in addition to their academic performance at degree level they have mastered English at UCNH.
In terms of achievement, towards the end of the first semester, a practical action initiated by the administration of the UCNH marked the academic year 2008-2009, as "Operation SOS Gonaives" undertaken by the University. On the 17th and 18th of November 2008, almost all of the approximately 367 students, the President and the Vice Presidents went to Gonaives, accompanied by Dr Steve James and his wife, and the nurse Miriane Petit-Papa, as well as the four members of the Committee on Student Affairs, to provide our support and our solidarity to the Cradle of Independence and is not yet returned to normal after being devastated, ruined, by three major hurricanes Jean, Hanna and Ike. The report made by Professor Gineville Jean Louis on the famous Operation SOS Gonaives can be found on our website http://www.ucnh.org/. It notes that "with the assistance of a team of volunteers, the UCNH made some concrete changes in areas of "K-Soleil", the Road of the Dates, Dekao and downtown...aid in cleaning some houses, medical care, counseling, distribution of kits containing food and clothing and a gift of fifty tents".
Indeed, students were able-with picks, forks, shovels, wheelbarrows and gloves (dnated in part by certain businessmen of Cap-removed rubble from several houses and a temple, thick layers f mud from hurricane Hanna and Ike, about a hundred Gonaivians received medical care and medicines, and tents that were given by Missionary Flights International, plus spiritual guidance provided to others to calm their fears whenever they notice that rain is coming.
We congratulate the Dean of the School of Agriculture, Robert Brunet and his students who have made outstanding contributions during the day of agriculture and labor on May 1st. recalling to our people the planters of the Northern department and our government in particular that our nation must remain a predominantly agricultural country, that it has neglected this vocation by engaging in the importation of products under threat of Dominican humiliation.
The last execution date was that of Flag Day, the University and the book, organized by the Student Affairs Committee of the UCNH. It is a pity that a considerable number of students in UCNH were away that day. The theme that was developed was the role of the University in the process of change in Haiti. Four panelists: Professor Moise J. Dorsinville, Prof. Gedeon Eugene, Prof. Ruben Thoby and Prof. Jusnerd Nelson, developed in turn 4 aspects of the University that must attract the attention of scholars of Haiti: the historical, sociological aspects, the legal and political aspects. I propose that these conferences be published for Haitian universities so they can learn to understand their role in the future of the Haitian nation.
The case of Haiti, remains a clinical case. Apart from the natural disasters which ruin us which are ruining our country, we hurt ourselves by our ignorance, our individualism and our irresponsibility to make our living conditions worse. Every time we look at the socio-economic conditions of the Haitian people that make many of our compatriots leave the country to seek a better life abroad, often forgetting the ancestors who have fought for this piece of land that we have literally ruined and made virtually unproductive by ur inconsistency, our ignorance and our mismanagement. Only last month, in the Haitian newspaper, Le Matin, 22 April 2009, the newspaper announced the publication of a series of articles under the theme HAITI IN DANGER, from the pen of journalist Nancy Roc, a recipient of the award north-south of the "Fédération des journalistes professionnelles du Québec". The object of this series is to show that the latest threat to Haiti today is environmental. According to the Editor of Le Matin, Nancy had already launched several cries of alarm over the airwaves during her visits to Haiti. This time she wanted to present exclusive reports, specially of Port-au-prince, Pandiassou, Gonaives, Hinche, Jérémie, Abricots, Marigot and Cabaret to support her thesis. Her first article on the Haitian environment was written on Port-au-prince. She introduced the Haitian Capital as a huge canvas of slums perched on mountain slopes or erected at the bottom of ravines. Before building, you cut the trees to allow the concrete to reign supreme, she wrote. Then she says that World Bank figures show that Port-au-prince alone consumes 250,000 tons of charcoal which means of 2.5 million tons of live trees throughout the national territory. She finally concluded that the capital city of our first black republic is an ecological bomb.
The plight of the Haitian nation, 5 years after the celebration of the bicentennial of our first black republic, is multidimensional. It was on March 23, 2004, approximately 11 weeks after boycotted celebrations of our bicentennial, about three weeks after the coup d'état against the regime that existed at the time, François Hauter of the daily Le Figaro published a revealing article entitled THE REAL REASONS FOR HAITIAN SHIPWRECK. He spoke of the Haitian people who had suffered "two hundred years of collective failure'" a Haitian society as "petrified in its contradictions, rooted in despair," a nation that wiped out "200 years of collective failure" : of a Haitian society as frozen in its contradictions, a nation which takes no care of its cultivated land surfaces cultivable which she inherited after independence- to the point that only 2% remains...a nation in free fall that persists in the calamity, a nation that is not progressing, a people living individual lives-each for himself, coupled with jealous mistrust towards the neighbor, a nation where everyone has an irresponsible behavior, an exaggerated individualism and a generalized irresponsibility-se pa fot mwen, se pa mwen pouki ranje peyi a, sa pa regade m(it's not my fault, it's not for me to fix the country- this does not concern me)-Haiti damn...these were , broadly speaking- the comments of the French on our unfortunate country.
About 5 years, almost to the day on 19 April 2009, a fellow Haitian , of newspaper Le Monde EVANGELIQUE de Montreal, Serge H. Moise, published an article entitled A SOLUTION FOR HAITI! He confessed that Haiti is in the process of the most acute crisis since its independence, that all sectors of national life are affected, creating a state of chaos with unpredictable consequences, as we approach a strong rate of bankruptcy, to the point of no return. He proposed as a solution, a neck to neck in particular to open Haiti to life. Time, he says, is no longer the petty squabbles, the struggles of clans, the sterile intrigues, even less to meet the challenge, through dialogue, consultation. He announced the project of a large National Committee and the establishment of a Haitian solidarity fund (FHS). Like Rosalvo Bobo, of Antenor Firmin, Jean Price Mars, Jacques Stephen Alexis, Jacques Roumain, Serge Moise who invite us to dialogue- to see how we can work together for the rebirth of the first black republic.
For several years, I have kept mentioning the Doctor.Ethnologist Louis Price-Mars whom I had the opportunity to me in his residence in Petionville in 1985, with a group of students from the Baptist Theological Seminary of Haiti, in a two-hour meeting. It was a question of his giving some constructive advice to the university youth. In 1995, just months before his death, he said that "the ultimate weapon of the Haitian people is lifelong learning, incessant and total need for the weapon of the Haitian people is lifelong learning, incessant and total need for the total emancipation of the Haitian people, if we want to go into the twenty-first century... "In spite of his counsel, we can see that at the beginning of this century the country continues to go backwards. The leaders of the country did not take these prophetic words seriously.
--Deforestation and erosion continue to take a larger proportion
--Agricultural production continues to decline to give way to Dominican products, to rice and to Miami peas.
--The accelerated migration of our Haitian brothers seems to have no limit: they continue to leave the country en masse, using unconventional means, they continue to be humiliated over as the try to force their presence or residence; our eastern neighbors continue to despise them. The Devil-haitiano, the say! They continue to cut their head (mata la cabeza) in public, as was done last May 1st!
--Those responsible for public administration continue to put their personal advantage before the country and corruption is rampant, "To steal from the state is not real stealing!
Democratic principles are not respected anymore, for example political parties during an election , e.g. the last elections of April 17 and if you please, under the surveillance of la Minustah (the UN)
--The university can not walk hand in hand with its old anti-democratic traditions with unskilled political leaders.
--The principles f respect for others, the right and duty of the citizen, human rights, justice is no longer observed.
HAITI IN DANGER
THE REAL REASONS FOR THE HAITIAN SHIPWRECK
A SOLUTION FOR HAITI.
The observations of Nancy Roc says, the affair of Senators and Congressman who are the representatives of the people whom they exploit by importing money from the same people-the money of the ONA, the tradition of election selection, unbelievable elections, non-democratic decisions, the comments made by Francois Hauter of the Figaro and Serge H. Moise of the Evangelical World, make me realize that after all the efforts made by the university in Haiti in recent years, our dear HAITI still walks to the edge of the precipice.
We must act and act quickly to get a good academic background, good education, a professional ethic, respect for democratic norms, to the rising generations, teaching them a sense of responsibility and good management principles to manage the limited resources we have left, to avoid waste, theft, corruption, ecocide...
We must continue to deploy more efforts to reach the new Haitian society that we dream of for the twenty-first century and the 3rd centenary of our first black republic.
We must strengthen the revolutionary vanguard that I already plan with the young scholars and well-trained patriots in the mold of Christian ethics and professional ethics that things can change for good in this country, for this country can change course, leadership.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear recipients it is time that authentic Haitian, Haitian patriot worthy of the name, any serious academic Haitian to respond to the sound of the "lambi"(conch shell) to come work together for the national reconstruction
Clearly, the future of this country depends on us, Haitians-not foreigners- and it is up to us to save the homeland, we must submit to the rigor of the thorough education, a specialized education to change our mentality, our world view, our outlook toward the well, good and beautiful.
Permanent, incessant and total education, university education is the ultimate weapon for the emancipation of the people of Haiti. We should save what can be saved. With us there is still hope for Haiti!
With us, Haiti will be reborn! Haiti will be reborn with us!
Dr. Jules Casseus
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