BREAKING: UCCI president resigns

My family and I will be leaving the Cayman Islands in December. I am proud of what we have accomplished together and am honoured to have served as UCCI’s President and CEO.  I will continue to hold you in my heart and wish you only best in the future.  

Dr. Stacy McAfee, UCCI President and CEO

(CMR) The President and CEO of UCCI, Stacy McAfee, has resigned this evening by sending out an email to staff just three days after CMR shared that she was in a power struggle with the board of directors to keep her position at the university. She may have had one of the shortest stints at the helm of the government owned university.

She is walking away from her $177,000 per annum job “with a heavy heart” after just three years on the job. The email notes that she is concluding her tenure at the end of the contract on December 31 and will be leaving the island with her family at that time.

In the email sent at 7:30 pm Wednesday evening, she noted that she has “worked tirelessly to grow UCCI's financial and future stability” and boasts a 43% increase in student enrolment across all degree programs and TVET. She continued praising herself and shared that “philanthropy has increased 15-fold” and for this year alone the university has received over $1 million in gifts and commitments.

She went on to discuss the accolades of her students including the growing president's and dean's lists noting that “student achievement has also soared.” She shared that:

“For three years, UCCI’s team of students have also won the regional Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) competition, a contest involving more than 1,000 universities worldwide. Two of the four cohorts of nursing students have also achieved a 100% pass rate on external exams, a feat rarely obtained by nursing schools.”

At no point in her email does she discuss any of the challenges and criticisms that she has faced during her tenure. CMR understands that since the new board has taken over in September a scathing report has been produced and they have requested funds from Cabinet for an HR Audit to be conducted. CMR was planning a number of stories about irregular promotions and hiring practices under her short tenure.