THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

VICE-CHANCELLOR

With about 78 approved universities in Nigeria - 26 Federal, 26 State and 24 private universities, of which Covenant University is one, it becomes necessary to address what the idea of a university in the 21st Century is, particularly as it relates to the African context. Right from inception in 2002, we have been driven by a compelling vision of raising a new generation of leaders and also by the need to kick off from a base of excellence. In addition, a number of the goals and objectives set at inception were around the idea of pioneering excellence at the cutting edge of learning. For us, it was important to have a strategic focus, that will provide a total integration for the academic content with the idea of developing graduates for the real life context and world of work.

To this extent, therefore, it is crucial for us to match the curriculum with the needs of the external environment of the University.

Starting from 26th of January 2007, the Covenant University professorates would be looking at the idea of a University against the background impression from John Henry Newman’s write-up about 120 years ago on "the idea of a university" in a way that will pull out the ideas expressed at that time and link them with the current scenarios and needs of our time. John Henry Newman talked about a university as being a place where inquiry is pushed forward, and discoveries are verified and perfected and rashness rendered innocuous and error exposed by the collision of mind with mind and knowledge with knowledge. It is a place where the professor becomes eloquent, and he is a missionary and a preacher, displaying his science in its most complete and most winning form, pouring it forth with zeal of enthusiasm, and lighting up his own love of it in the breast of his hearers. And he goes on to say it is the seat of wisdom, a light to the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation.

These are very powerful descriptions indeed about university, and when we come to see what universities are in the current times, we just wonder how many would foot this bill or meet the description here. Any place that has been named or called or approved to run as a university, owes this to its context, society, setting and the students that it must groom.

At Covenant University, we want to closely explore what the idea of a university is in order for us to be able to state that, yes, we are truly a university in the real sense of it without any apologies and also to be able to defend and uphold the definitional implications of what a university represents. As far as our vision base is concerned, the one major contribution from the university’s platform is that of raising a new generation of leaders for society, leaders who must go through a developmental phase in terms of being molded and groomed for the demands of the real life context. In addition to this, we also know that the education that persons are exposed to in a university setting must be one that brings about refinement and for us here, it means the restoration of the dignity of the Black Man. And this means several things when we try to uncover it in depth. Having said so, the curriculum development emphasis of the academic programmes must be one that is tied to the needs of the real world so that there is a meeting of minds, and quality interaction between town and gown. The University should serve as a factory where products are turned out, and these products must find good use in the hands of the user. I see society as the user of these products and the products are the graduates and the students who would get into the real world and begin to work out paths for their lives.

Universities must constantly challenge the status quo by pushing and expanding the frontiers of learning. They must be repositories of knowledge, they must be constantly critiquing and also serving as a social conscience to society in terms of upholding a moral and ethical base as well as in terms of being a mirror for society to look at itself through. In other words, they must reflect proper grooming and also a context where there is love for service to humanity, one that must constantly bring positive change and refinement.

It is against this background that as we explore this series, the Professors of Covenant University within the next few months will begin to turn over this subject matter in a way that would best define their own academic base and areas of specialization because the truth is, perspectives in terms of the contributions we make will differ and will constantly help to qualify that which we must continue to be and unless we take on such subject matters and discourse, the idea of a university in the sense that it must reflect, may sooner or later loose its meaning, and if we are not careful, universities in Africa may just as well become glorified secondary schools or lose direction totally and then just be everything and at the end of it all, become nothing. It is very easy for persons to just go through the motions without questioning or querying how universities must function. The traditional function of the university in contributing to research, teaching and community service and of course, direct a pathway for its citizenry as well as existing for the common good of humanity, is what we will attempt to flag out from these series. It is to this extent that our responsibility to our nation and continent in restoring the dignity of the black man, through a university as ours is most remarkable in driving the actualization of its vision base. It is in the light of this that right at the beginning, that the Chancellor of this great University, Dr David Oyedeo, talked about the mission and what it must achieve as well as the fact that it must break the force and the trap of tradition. In other words, we will not do it as it has always been done. If we do that, we will be guilty of getting old results but as a university, we must seek to create, inform and uncover the truths, particularly in the context of our indigenous base. We must seek to uncover the old pathways of wisdom, finding out the raw materials, the rich resources in the context of the African base and what the old civilization held even for the renaissance and the reformation periods and then, what we must begin to do even in the 21st century. I do believe that this has been described as the knowledge age and right now universities are seen as knowledge centers. That means a strong commitment to research and the creation of knowledge, support for innovations and innovativeness as well as the fact that the context we provide must be one that is sufficiently stimulating to achieve all of these in its fullness. It also means that persons who belong to a context like ours, that is in the broader sense of what a university should stand for, must be able to work out the details of what contribution they must make from time to time. The question is whether universities that are just purely teaching universities will ever be able to fulfill the mandate for being called universities against the background that we just explored.

We feel at Covenant University, that the more we turn these questions over the closer we will get to really finding out whether a light has been lit which will help us identify the real end of the tunnel. But I see that there are so many tunnels and right now there are a lot of things to put in place when it comes to a scenario that may be described as fuelled by tunnel visionaries and a robustness which must come forth in rubbing mind with mind as expressed by John Henry Newman. Unless we embrace this perspective we may be talking of an age of extinction as far as Universities are concerned. Right now, there are lots of challenges that we are grappling with in terms of tapping from a rich resource base in what has been described as the challenge for the universities in Nigeria of the aging professorate. There’s this feeling that when persons become professors and even more so, when they begin to hit the retirement age of 65, there are issues about what happens to the contributions over time and how can these be passed on from one generation to the other.

At Covenant University, we want to believe that the idea of retirement is something that we will not subscribe to and the truth is there’s quite a lot to continue to draw from. I do believe that we will be talking about a university as a place where inspiration can be found and a tireless pursuit for knowledge creation and an unquenchable thirst even for more depths of knowledge. I do hope that the rich resource, the fountain and of course, the placement of makers of this new generation will continue to serve as milestones that we will be able to identify in what Covenant University has come to mean.

We do look forward to getting feedback from other contexts so as to be able to spark off a rich discourse from persons who would read this across the globe as to what the 21st century University must stand for. In a flat world that ours is fast becoming, where geographical boundaries no longer exist in the real sense of divides, it is important to revisit this issue and we want to be right at the vanguard of really looking at what universities must function as and what the idea of a university is in this century, particularly for our nation Nigeria and continent Africa.

We invite you to join us as we explore this subject of the Idea of a University together in the next few weeks.