Muffles Junior College

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Location in Belize

Muffles Junior College is a Catholic junior university college, located in Orange Walk District, Belize. Established in 1954 by the Society of Jesus, the college has been administered by the Sisters of Mercy since 1967.

History

In 1954 Jesuit Fr. Ring helped launch a high school in Orange Walk, named after Fr. Joseph Meuffels, S.J. (The spelling of the college name was adjusted to the way it is pronounced.) The Sisters of Mercy took charge of the school in 1967.^[1] In 1992 the need for tertiary level classes in Orange Walk District led to the first junior college classes at Muffles, with an enrollment of thirty-eight students pursuing the Associate Degree in Business Science. The first graduating class on June 11, 1994, numbered 22. With the support of the local community and government, Muffles Junior College relocated to its own campus in 2002. By 2012 nine associate degree programs enrolled approximately 400 students.^[2]

Muffles College is named after Fr. Joseph Meuffels, a Jesuit from The Netherlands who arrived in Belize in 1898 and taught at St. John’s College for two years. In 1900 he began a twenty-year stint pastoring the Orange Walk church. He saw through the building of the present Inmaculada, replacing the earlier building destroyed by fire on November 28, 1899. With the help of Brother Naughton, S.J., Meuffels expanded the work of the schools and in 1914 brought the Pallottines to Orange Walk. In 1920 he returned to St. John’s College where he taught religion and was a counselor until his death on January 23, 1931.^[1]

Gallery

Bishop Joseph Murphy with Fr. Joseph Meuffels, in 1928
Jesuit Frs. Joseph Meuffels and "Buck" Stanton, c. 1908

References

^ ^a ^b Woods, Charles M. Sr., et al. Years of Grace: The History of Roman Catholic Evangelization in Belize: 1524-2014. (Belize: Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan, 2015), pp. 109, 170, 186.
^ "History". Muffles Junior College. 2021. Retrieved 28 June 2021.