BETHLEHEM MORAVIAN College has embarked on a major fund-raising drive to raise $50 million to construct a multi-purpose auditorium. The auditorium will facilitate a number of college events as well as the focal point for civic and cultural events on the south coast.
Deputy Prime Minister Seymour Mullings will be the guest speaker at Dinner 2000, today at 7 .m. at Beadle Hall, Santa Cruz, designed to jump-start this project.
A number of visitors from the University of Wisconsin, Whitewater, will travel to Jamaica for the event. The dinner will also serve as a reunion for hundreds of Bethlehem past students and their families.
Sponsor, Edward Gayle and Company Limited, donated the first cheque to the college as a symbol of their endorsement and co-operation in the project. Other contributors are Dehring Bunting & Golding Ltd, Redman and Sons/Levan Electrical and Jamaica National Building Society.
In 1861, three young women stood outside a simple building overlooking the Moravian Church at Bethabara, Newport, Manchester. They were pioneer students of what is now known as Bethlehem Moravian College, located in the cool hills of Malvern after changing three locations, in Manchester and St. Elizabeth.
Today, the population and concept of the teachers' college has changed dramatically. The college boasts over 700 residential and day students. The concept of a teachers' college has also given way to a multidisciplinary concept, a new thrust towards the 21st century.
Now renamed Bethlehem Moravian College, the multidisciplinary institution, has alongside its various educational options, the community college status, an extension programme, offering continuing education to the rural community and adjoining areas of Manchester and Clarendon. Bethlehem has also forged linkages with a number of universities and colleges in Canada and the United States, including, the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.
