PROLOGUE
A few years ago, I had
the rare privilege of being invited to compete for appointment as the pioneer
Vice Chancellor of a new private university in Nigeria. Although I had always told people that if I
ever returned to Nigeria, I would be too old to be of any use to the country,
professionally speaking and I am not an enthusiast for administrative positions,
I did accept the invitation.
Simultaneously, had I not left Nigeria to resettle abroad, my life would
not have been fully consumed by my academic pursuits. I always hoped for some measure of public
service, including running for public office, and I surely was going to keep
burnishing my credentials for my original motivation for going to university:
to be a journalist. Additionally, I am
never one to shirk a challenge or pass on an opportunity to fail at doing
something significant for the world. So,
when I was approached to submit my credentials and was invited for an interview
with the Board of the proposed institution, in spite of my hesitation about
relocating to Nigeria--I am getting a bit old for starting my life again
somewhere other than wherever I am at the present time--I said yes.
Of course, my application
was not successful. But I remain
grateful to the authorities of the institution for giving me the opportunity to
compete to be a part of their glorious vision for their school. I won't ever stop rooting for the institution
to rise to the level of its original conception.
What follows is the
application that I wrote to the Board. Why
publish this now? First, not too many
people know what motivates some of us to stay abroad, relocate to our original
homeland, seek to be a part of life in the land we left behind, and so on. While one can never rule out the play of ego
and the attraction of lucre, I also want to share with others a modest vision
that sadly, I hope I am wrong, is not part of how we think of universities and
those who have charge of them in Nigeria.
This represents, in part, my opinion of what leadership of a university
should be and do.
Finally, I would end this
prologue with a declaration: this piece has no further purpose than the sharing
of a vision. No, I am not available for
consideration for appointment at this time.
But if anyone else similarly placed sees anything of worth in what I
have shared, I am most appreciative.
What follows is what I
shared with the Board of the institution.
I have omitted all references to the particular institution, its
location, or any other identifying features.
MY VISION
What Drives My
Work?
“I once had a
conversation with a Nigerian friend whom I was trying to convince of the
persuasiveness of the case that I am making in this book. I had asked him
whether he or I or quite a number of us who now make our homes in Euro-America
went to those countries because we were lured by the promise of regular power,
water, and food supplies and stayed because of the bright lights and other
material comforts that our countries of sojourn offer. He offered, no. The reason for this is not far to seek. Indeed,
if what we desired were merely material comforts, many of us in Euro-America
would probably be in a position to procure those things at the individual
level, as do most of our compatriots who stay home, even when the state remains
remiss in discharging those functions. A
good part of the reason that we immigrated to Euro-America, I suggested and my
friend agreed, relates to the opportunity that their countries offer for
self-realisation and, more importantly, more control over the course of our
lives and those of our offspring, especially in areas of choosing our rulers,
deciding how we lead our lives “from the inside” and having our personal spaces
respected, if not treated with utter sanctity. I suspect that many of those who may offer the
objections that I have been considering fall within the same demographic group
as my friend and me. They are the ones
who do not miss any opportunity to come to Euro-America to, as one of them said
to us several years ago, 'get some fresh air'. Here is my challenge: why is it okay for
members of our upper and middle classes, such as they are, to help themselves
to the intangible but more significant rewards of modernity while they object
to making the same available to the lowliest of their compatriots in African
countries?”
The quote above is an
excerpt from my latest book just published in Nigeria. The motivation it states—to put at the
disposal of the lowliest Nigerians the best that the world has to offer and I
am in a position, within the limits of my ability, to help them attain—not only
drives my research but all that I do when it comes to my relationship with
Nigeria and the larger African continent.
I am persuaded that the
prospect of providing pioneering leadership for a new university informed by a
keen vision to not only be different but be committed to the kind of excellence
that is no longer part of how we do business in our common homeland, Nigeria,
imposes on me the duty to be very clear respecting how I hope to present myself
and conduct the affairs of the institution, should I be fortunate to be
selected.
Finally, I have always
believed that my education overseas and my living in other parts of the world
are meant to make me look at things in my homeland with a view to identifying
the best practices in other parts of the world that I have become conversant
with. This is an attitude that has often
set me at odds with some of my closest friends over the years. But it is one that I am disinclined to disavow
for a very simple reason. As the Yorùbá
say, Kò
sí bí ọ̀bọ ṣe ṣe orí t’Ínàkí kò ṣe, tótó ó ṣe bí òwe. I do not see
any reason why we should give anything but the best to the ordinary people of
Nigeria when we perennially avail ourselves of same in other parts of the
world. What is more, if Indians, South
Koreans, Singaporeans, among others, can borrow a leaf from Euro-America to
build first-rate universities, there is no reason why we cannot do the same in
any part of Nigeria. Where there is a
will, there is a way, so say the English.
What I know about the vision that animates Ayégbàmí University persuades
me that the requisite will is there and that I would have the necessary backing
of its authorities to realize that vision.
As the overall head of
the institution, I see myself as the visionary-in-chief, motivator-in-chief,
and scholar-in-chief, in that order. As
the visionary-in chief, my principal task is to create, nurture, and
disseminate in the most aggressive and most effective way possible, the
Ayégbàmí University Brand. I take my
inspiration from the fact that the university is chartered by an individual who
knows what this is, and who has shown his commitment to the importance of
branding by his own example. By the end
of my 5-year term, our students, our faculty, even our janitorial staff, should
be living and breathing our brand; and our first set of graduates, who should
be rounding up their service year at that time, should have no difficulty
selling prospective employers, prospective investors in their own business
start-ups, or just the general public, on what is special about their Ayégbàmí
education and why it is like no other in the neighbourhood.
As the motivator-in chief,
I would lead by example, give over and above the call of duty, and inspire all
who work at the university to do the same.
This will include an open administration where even the lowliest staff
will be encouraged to make suggestions on how to make things work more smoothly
and more efficiently. It will be an
operation that people are proud to be a part of and one where any shady deals
or attempts to subvert rules will be shown to be ineffective and costly to
those who engage in them. THERE WILL BE
ZERO TOLERANCE FOR RULE BREACHES ON ANYONE’S PART. I cannot think of a better motivation for
doing the right thing than PRIDE in our work and in being a participant in such
a project.
As the scholar-in chief,
my job is to locate teacher-scholars who are primarily committed to
excellent teaching but who also realize that enhancing their scholarship
through both their own original work and their keeping abreast of developments
in their fields is an essential ingredient of teaching excellence. I will not encourage the paper chase that is
the bane of universities in our country.
But I will seek to emplace a reward system that makes excellent teaching
informed by top-flight scholarship the anchor on which all else rests. Finally, we will design innovative service
learning programmes, including internships for our students, as part of the
Ayégbàmí brand.
I am not the kind of
leader who micro-manages his subordinates.
A sure sign of good leadership is the ability to locate excellent
subordinates to whom responsibilities can be delegated and who can be trusted
to discharge those responsibilities in ways that best redound to the overall
vision and mission of the institution.
This begins with locating and putting in place a capable management team
from the Provost on down to the headship of departments.
How might the
vision be realised in the specific circumstance of Ìlúabíni?
Universities always try
to be a vital part of the communities where they are located. They have on their faculty experts on local
issues and they have academic as well as allied programmes that plug into their
local communities in very deep ways. The
local population is always a basic pool from which to source some of their
students and work-study, service-learning and sundry community-oriented programmes
are geared to ensuring that the university pulls its immediate community along
with it and its faculty, staff, and students are well-integrated into the host
community. I expect to lead a university
that does this in a way that becomes a model for Nigeria, nay, Africa. I cite as an example the town of Antigonish
in Nova Scotia, Canada, where St. Francis Xavier University is located. It has only 6,439 residents but the
university is the biggest employer there and the town has at least two radio stations,
largely staffed by students and other members of the university. This has not stopped it from having the Coady
Institute for International Development that has a global reputation and
attracts scholars from all over the world.
This is what I mean by how I am affected by my travels to want to have
the best for our people. Ìlúabíni
represents almost eight times the promise of Antigonish and this is not an
insignificant advantage and challenge. Ithaca,
the location of Cornell University [I had not relocated to Cornell when I wrote
this], has only 29,000 plus residents.
It supports\is supported by two universities and a large prison. It has all the trappings of a city that make
it possible for its residents to afford lifestyles from the opulent to the
working class. Cornell supplies the city
and its environs with fresh milk and its apple cider is an award winner. It has the top equine science programme in
the United States and its Hotel and Tourism school is top ten in the
country. These are the images that the
vision of Ayégbàmí University and its location, Ilúabíni, conjures in my head
and I see no reason why they cannot be attained in Ìlúabíni.
Our goal is to provide
first-rate education for all who walk through the portals of Ayégbàmí University
and produce graduates that would fly our banner very high wherever in the world
they happen to drop anchor.
International recognition will be a byproduct, not a motivating factor,
of our operation. By their fruits, ye
shall know them.
Finally, I take very
seriously that one important part of my function as the head of Ayégbàmí
University is to also serve as the fund-raiser-in-chief because, when all is
said and done, the university must remain a viable business concern over the
long haul if we are to attain the lofty goals that I have described in the
preceding sections.
I want to thank the
selection committee very much for granting me audience and for allowing me to
associate myself with your exciting and exceeding vision. May we all live to see its full realisation.
I hope that this is a
vision that others can find attractive should they be circumstanced to design
and run a university in Nigeria.
No comments:
Post a Comment