Bunmi Olarewaju
The Vice Chancellor, Federal University Oye Ekit (FUOYE)i Professor Joshua Olalekan Ogunwole has disclosed that his Administration was set to promote the ‘New Face of FUOYE, saying old things have passed away.
He made this known during an interactive meeting with the University’s Administrators, at the Vice Chancellor’s Conference Room, Senate building recently.
While welcoming the Administrators, the VC appreciated their roles in holding forth for the University, pointing out that “the Administrators are the neck of the University and that there is no way you want to run the University activities without the Registry.
This administration therefore, will enable all stakeholders in the University towards an enhanced productivity through the provision of an enabling environment.The resultant effects of this is that the University will grow and glow and will be in tandem with our mission and also align with our anthem of liberating Nigeria and redeeming African nations.
“Reminiscence is made of the last administration that had grown the university so tremendously, and of course with all of this growth, are its attendant challenges; and with these challenges staring us in the face is the need to rethink FUOYE. This meeting therefore serves as an avenue to familiarize ourselves with the new administration, the path to go and what the administration is set to achieve in its five years tenure”, Prof. Ogunwole stated.
“We consequently, look forward to Administrators, who are change agents and men of ideas. Men and women that will partner the management in changing the face of FUOYE”, he stressed.
According to the VC, “we want to toe the path of a world class University by adopting and embedding all characters that make a world class University. This will include concentrating talents. We must as a university pouch for talents. People that are movers of the world are pouched, and so we must pouch for talents every where and from other universities in terms of students and staff if we must move to the rank of a world class University”
Prof. Ogunwole insisted that “we must also have an abundance of resources . There must be a deliberate drive towards it. In this line, we will review our budgets and prioritize our resource base because resources must be available to run this mission.
Speaking further, the Vice- Chancellor emphasized the dedication of a high skilled workforce for technology, noting that technology will help us tremendously to facilitate what we want to become as a University; and as such the administration will ensure and commit more time and resources to training and re-training of staff in this direction.
His words: “The administration is also set to promote intellectual leadership. Leadership that will allow festering of individual ideas that will provoke critical thinking. Nobody will fight anyone for contrary opinion. The world and as such, the University is looking for philosophers and people that will stir the heart of great thinkers. Challenge the thought of the Vice Chancellor if you could and you will not be victimized for doing so, in the like manner,when your junior colleague confronts you with a contrary ideas, let’s listen to them”
The Vice- Chancellor reiterated that his administration would promote Institutional Partnership and Collaboration; attracting high levels of government and intergovernmental funding; promoting teaching, research and administration.
“Our performance index for a world class University is that we must be globally competitive and our students output must be the same all over”, the VC stated.
He further hinted that the University at the moment was at growth inflection and with all challenges that accompanied it. If we must exit this inflection and move farther, things must not be done the way we are used to doing it. Our concentration would be on rejigging our culture, products and model.
Prof. Ogunwole pointed out tha “culture is a way of life that depicts the behaviours of people and organizations. It is our way of life and exposes what we are as a university, therefore, beginning from now we must project the right culture of a University to the world”
The Vice- Chancellor who spoke passionately on the products of the University, who are our students, maintained that our products must be universally acceptable, they must be branded in a way that will make them first amongst their equals and be acceptable to the markets.
“In the light of this, we must work on our curriculum to reflect the changes in the society, partner with organizations to organize a simulated interview for our students so that at graduation they would know what is expected of them at interview panels”, said he.
Photo Credit: Nifesimi Ogungbe
