By Akeem Oyetunji The Spring 2017 Pledge ceremony for Classes of 2018 (Graduate) and 2020 (Undergraduate) was held on Monday, January 23, 2017, at the Library Auditorium, main campus of the American University of Nigeria (AUN) Yola, Adamawa state.
After the colourful ceremony, the President of the University, Dr Margee Ensign, took time out to interact with Journalists in her office. She fielded questions in a relaxed mood.
On the great task of selecting hundreds out of thousands of students that showed interest to pursue academic programmes in the University, Dr Ensign said:
“If you look at the statistics, 4,000 young people showed interest in the University, 700 applied and we took it down to a few more hundreds and we have a graduate class of 155.
And 15 percent of them are on scholarship and that is really important for you to know.
So, we are looking for the best and the brightest in this country and around the world. Now we have students coming back from the US, from the UK, from Canada.
So, this is an extraordinary class in terms of their past performance and we will expect that they will also perform extremely well going forward”
On the increasing number of foreign students coming to the University, an excited AUN President had this to say:
“I don’t know the exact number (foreign students) but it’s between five to 10 percent. But, that is really increasing and one of the reasons is because the University is connecting with something called NIDO, Nigerians in the Diaspora.
You folks are everywhere and I have the privilege to go to Canada to speak to the global audience. I spoke with a new group of NIDO and I think that is really an important thing to comment on because Nigerians go out, you are everywhere in the world. But how many are coming home for their education?
Asked why the sudden increase in enrolment despite insurgency in the northeast that has also affected Adamawa state, she responded this way:
“I think it means that parents and students have realised that the insurgency is fading and that is very important. Because we remained a safe and secured campus during rough times, now it is clear that the parents and students are very attracted to this University.
I have heard so many parents saying to me we have heard about what this University did during insurgency and we want our children to have an education where they become leaders and where they solve problems.
So, I think those two go together- security is better, parents have realised we are quite different, our education is different. It is an American education, the exact thing you get at the best schools in America is what you get here.
We take a step further, we ensure these young people become leaders and can solve problems. I think that is why the classes are increasing so much. Because of your (media) good work and others, people in the country, in the Canada, in the UK are realising this is a real, I call it education for great value.”
On why only 155 students were offered admission out of over 4,000 that showed interest, Dr Ensign had this to say:
“Because we want the best and that’s what we can take at the moment. So, every University has targets and our targets are based on academic performance, personal character and also the facilities in the University.
So, with this class we will be quite filling out residence house. I know some Universities and not just in Nigeria but around the world will just say let’s put a few more students. We don’t do that because a lot of the programme in education programmes actually happen in the hostel.
We want students to be comfortable. We take great pride in our residence house and we are not going to put six students in a room meant for three. And we also have to watch the gender breakdown because men and women are in separate hostels.
So, we have asked the Board to approve that additional housing be built. So, we are growing rapidly for the right reasons. So, people have discovered us, the students are performing extremely well not only in Nigeria, they are in the best graduate schools in my country, in the UK and so on.
I think overtime, people in Nigeria have realised that this is a very special place. I have to say special because of its vision which comes from His Excellency Atiku Abubakar.
From the beginning he said be different, be unusual, solve problems, make people’s life better and you must understand how important that vision is for this University because that is what we represent. Training young people, preparing them for the big challenges we are facing now.”
She also spoke about expansion and plan to have more courses:
“Well, we are in the design phase and the design has to be approved. We have design for two residence house, design for engineering laboratories.
At the moment we are expanding our health clinic and it will be a 14-bed facility and that should take care of everyone before we can move forward to the School of Medical Studies.
So, we need many more facilities and now we have to determine how many additional Faculties we need to start us those programmes.
Presently, we have School of Business and Entrepreneurship, which has undergraduate, Masters and PhD. The School of Sciences at the moment has undergraduate and we are looking at Masters and PhD.
The School of Information Technology in Computing has undergraduate, Masters and PhD. And as you know we now have School of Law which is only First Degree and Engineering we have first degree, Masters and PhD.
But because in your country so many senior faculties are retiring and not enough young PhD are being trained. So, we are looking at varieties of new PhD programmes.
Your country as got many 25s and 26s who need to be educated. And we are doing everything we can to respond to that quickly.
We are looking at online programmes. The Executive Secretary of NUC has supported that.
Right now I hate to say you have some of the worst education in the world and it is because of access. You have to make sure that every child in this country has access to education.
We are writing now some proposals for online Masters and PhD to move access forward and to make it wider in the country.”
However, the AUN President declined to mention some of the online programmes that may soon be introduced, saying “Yes, we do have plans (to introduce online programmes) but I don’t think I want to share my secret.”
Dr Ensign also spoke on the importance of TUESDAY being the first academic day for the new students.
“Oh, it (Tuesday) is so important. Do you remember your first day in school? We all do, right? So, this is first day in school when you are bigger and it’s a huge day and sometimes we forget to honour this day in our lives.
So, they begin a new phase right now, the discoveries being now. In the classrooms, in the residence house, we are all here to support them.
We are building up the excitement because it is really an exciting day.
On expectations from the Class of 2020, the President said:
“Let me just say something that happened that makes me say this is a special class.
This class clap for everyone and that has never happened before. They also clap at all times, they support each other and this is an extremely different class.
During the community service they know their potentials and they also know what they have to do to solve somebody’s problem.
Look at that young lady from Borno exceeding everybody expectations, every student looks up to her. They clap at all times, they are going to support each other and I think it is an extraordinary class.”
