Three-year-old Gregory University Uturu (GUU), Abia State, insists its vision is not just to churn out top-level graduates but also painstakingly groomed leaders, reports ADEGUNLE OLUGBAMILA who visited the institution.
At Gregory University Uturu (GUU), Abia State, the undergraduates are not addressed as students, but scholars.
“Here our students are called scholars and not students simply because we made research and leadership to be part of their daily academic exercise,” said Mr Ogbonnaya Ogwo, Dean of Scholars.
“We are not merely grooming students here but finished products who upon graduation, a potential employer would not need to offer additional training in leadership and expertise to adjust to the work environment. Our target is that before graduation, our students will have been equipped socially, psychologically, academically and otherwise.”
The institution is grooming leaders who will be free and equipped to make critical impact wherever they are, but while they are still being groomed, GUU does not take chances when it come to discipline.
Imagine you wish to visit your parents and the school authorities ask you to sign an exit form, and later reach out to your parents to get the green light before you are finally granted the freedom by the Students Affairs unit?
At GUU such disciplinary measures are the rule rather than the exception.
Ogwo recalled that when the measure was first introduced by the university three years ago, many of the students described it as draconian and a breach of their right to freedom. Today, the nearly 500 youthful undergraduates are happy with it, Ogwo added.
“We are happy about it,” said Madibuko Chibuzor a 300-Level Mass Communications scholar of the institution.
“We have since realised that the move is not to cage us but ensure our safety anywhere we are. Mind you, it is not that we do not enjoy social life; only that here, it is redefined. We have social events which are approved by the authorities. The most important thing is that we are made to see fun as a part of our study and what should equally contribute to our overall growth.”
And that also determines the students’ leadership, Ogwo added. The student with the highest Cumulative Grade Point Average in his or her 300 level automatically becomes the President of the Scholars’ Body.
Mgbe Ezekial is currently the President Scholars’ Body. Ngbe, a Political Science undergraduate with a CGPA of 4.75, said the emergence a student’s leader is automatic once the aforementioned condition is met, and not determined by shortcuts or nepotism.
”It’s a wake-up call,” Ngbe said concerning his new status. “This is my first time of handling a portfolio. My role oftentimes involved playing a middleman between management and students. So it’s an opportunity for me to know what leadership in real life should be and how I should exhibit those virtues I’m learning now when I eventually get into the outside world.
GUU, licensed in February 2012 by the National Universities Commission ushered in its first fruits for the 2012/2013 academic session in October across its three colleges- Humanities, Social & Management Sciences as well as Natural and Applied Sciences.
However, its chief Gregory Ibe, a former lecturer in Abia State University and a science-inclined personality, dreamed that beyond merely establishing a university, the graduates would be equipped with indigenous knowledge capable of solving both local and global challenges. And unlike many young institutions hungry for students and therefore pampering the few ones they have, the founder made discipline the mantra of the university.
Recently, we expelled two students for gross insubordination, “said the university’s Registrar Dr Austin Orisakwe.
He continued: “Some have also been suspended. There was a particular one that was suspended for a full session. Expulsion or suspension or both is part of our practice here and students are beginning to realise that academics require disciple. Generally, behaviors have improved when compared to when we started.”
Today with NUC approval, the institution runs additional colleges in Agriculture & Environmental Sciences, Engineering and as well as a privilege to transit seamlessly to run MBBS to consolidate the Basic Medical Science it initially commenced under the College Natural and Applied Sciences.
Today GUU wears the look of a construction site with endearing facilities that dot the landscape.
According to Ogwo, the Founder would leave no stone unturned in its determination to see GUU evolve as a 21-century institution. To this end, he has deployed his life’s earning to ensuring that the university suffers no infrastructures.
Little wonder, between July and August this year, the institution’s College of Engineering played host to 293 professors of engineering and lab technologists across 73 universities nationwide who were trained in phases in a TETFund (tertiary Education Trust Fund)-sponsored exercise.
“Though we are still very young, TETFund chose us to host that training because of the amount of facilities in our College of Engineering here,” said GUU Vice Chancellor Prof Charles Uchenna Okoroafor.
One important mileage, according to Okoroafor, is that students are allowed to pay the tuition in three installments. In addition, the university also offers student work-study program for the indigents. Another opportunity, continued Okoroafor, is the two week orientation course GUU offers new students to familiarise them with the vision and mission of the institution.
Okoroafor said aside the Founder’s regular financial contributions, GUU now runs the Enterprise Ventures, in which the founder equally ploughed back some of his personal investments to further shoot up the university internally generated revenue.
Substantiating Okoroafor’s claim, Chidinma Uwandu a 300-Level Mass Communications undergraduate told The Nation that lecturer-student relationship is flexible, allowing the latter to enquire on any grey area be it in the classroom or otherwise.
“We are able to tell our lecturer that we do not understand any aspect and the possibility of explaining any difficult area to us is there. Here, no student suffers complex issue as well all see our teachers as motivators with whom we can always confide in or exchange ideas.”
Uwandu whose parents lived in Abuja, said the choice of GUU has also paid off as she now speaks the Igbo language which her parents had always wanted her to learn but could not due to her stay with them in Abuja.
Uwandu’ teacher and HoD Mass Communications Dr Chibuzor Izuchukwu, is happy that having put up a glorious career as a retired director in the Federal Radio Corporation, he is further fulfilled at GUU.
“There are institutions and there is an institution,” Izuchukwu said, beside the GUU Campus Radio 99.9 FM.
”I love order, and here there is one. The environment here suits my lifestyle. Even though this is a private university; yet there is independence in teaching. I also live on campus and that gives me the opportunity to do my research without distraction.”
Dr Orisakwe, recalled the institution which began with 85 students and 30 teaching staff, have increased to over 400 students and nearly 200 academic staff respectively. Orisakwe is also happy that come June next year, GUU would graduate her first fruits. He is also confident that the 13 programmes recently appraised by NUC during its recent visit would scale the hurdle, going by the amount of facility on ground.
The Founder Dr Ibe, told The Nation the inspiration behind GUU.
”We are set to groom younger ones at the level of what the Igbo’s called mado. In my business world, my experiences and growth, I have been a skilled person all through. While I was in primary and secondary school, I have learnt various skills and because I am an informal person in terms of acquisition of skills, I felt that there is need for informal sector to be a major drive of an economy.
“I teach entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship has told me that more people are involved in enterprise in every economy than the blue and white collar jobs. I’m also guided by the fact that the business that I do involves promotion of science or the study of science and technology subject through my firm- Skill G.
“Having gone round over 600 local governments in Nigeria in designing what we call the Needs Assessment and also in setting almost 547 skilled centres for the United Nations, I came to a point where I started feeling very bad. In our secondary and primary schools there are some minimal things that have been sent to the school such as instructional materials. The universities and the polytechnics have equipment to study, but those things are normally abandoned. This was what led me to go into business of setting up laboratory, workshops for training because those things are lacking. I now said: ‘Oh God I have to set up a university where I can close the gap I observed in the public institutions”
