The Union of Christian Universities of the Caribbean (UNICUC) enriches member institutions by stimulating and supporting the quest for high quality Christian higher education in the Caribbean. The Union is a voluntary organization of colleges, universities and schools reclaiming their history, heritage and relationships in the Protestant sector in the Caribbean. It promotes intentional Christian education, while cooperating in the advancement of the mutual well-being of each member. We have more than 15 member schools representing more than 35,000 students in 10 countries of the Caribbean Community.
We are committed to supporting, protecting, and promoting the value of integrating the Bible—divinely inspired, true, and authoritative—into all curricular and extracurricular aspects of the educational experience on our college campuses, including teaching and the scientific research. We support a coherent approach to education in which the development of mind, soul, body and emotions are intertwined in the quest not only for knowledge but also for wisdom. Intelligence is the beginning of Wisdom, according to Ecclesiastes.
A growing awareness of their common mission has developed among Christian universities of higher education in the Caribbean and especially in Haiti where young Haitians have no alternative but to join an armed gang group during the year 2020, who had been meeting for more than two years at two annual meetings of the presidents of Caribbean Christian universities, sponsored by Entraide et Fraternité Chrétienne pour une Économie Verte and the Mission Evangélique Alliance. The need felt was for an organization that would pool the unlimited human and technical resources of these institutions for their mutual benefit and that of the entire Caribbean region. Their successive meetings have accurately presented the challenges and opportunities that the rapidly changing conditions of a resurgent Caribbean bring them, and have inspired them with a vision of closer cooperation and united efforts, dedicated to Christian witness and service in education especially in Haiti.
The Union of Christian Universities of the Caribbean (UNICUC) was officially created during a founding conference held from October 22 to 23, 2021 at the headquarters of the Mission Evangélique Alliance member of the Protestant Federation of Haiti. In which 5 Christian institutions participated: Queensland University (UQ), Saint Michel Archange University, Evangelical Theology of Grace Seminary (STEG), Theophany University and the Moravian Church of Haiti, the conference launched the first stage, according to the words of the Rector of Queensland University, Madame Izelle D Dubuisson, towards "more initiative and responsibility in planning, working and sharing together on a Caribbean regional basis".
The history of the Academy of Research, Arts and Sciences (ARAS) stretches well back to the inaugural launch in September 2021 when the Union of Christian Universities of the Caribbean (UNICUC) opened in Haiti. The life of the founders of the Academy, Izelle D Dubuisson, is filled with experiences that merge research, arts and sciences in innovative ways in Haiti and around the world. Establishing an Academy of Sciences in Haiti is not at all an easy thing because Haiti is filled with non-progressive men and women.
The Academy of Research, Arts and Sciences (ARAS) exists to promote excellence in research, the arts and sciences, to stimulate activity in fields that lie at the intersection of disciplines and to provide independent scholarship and advice on social and public policy in Haiti. Our Academy was actually modeled on the goals and objectives of the creation of the Academy during the year 2021.