Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

I am embarrassed that my colleagues, Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, are mimicking the tropes and templates often deployed by politicians to talk about their "accomplishments" in office.

Recently, I watched a fancy, professionally packaged online video, replete with commentary, about the "achievements" of the VC of a federal university in the North-central zone who recently completed their 5-year tenure.

I thought I was watching one of the familiar gubernatorial video informercials that Governors commission and routinely use to advertise their achievements.

Even the language in this VC achievement video was the same as that of gubernatorial TV informercials, with the generous use of words such as "commissioned," "built," "contract awarded," and “under his able leadership."

And, just like the gubernatorial informercial, this video focused on physical infrastructures--buildings, halls, hostels, facilities, etc.

There was no mention of this VC's achievements in the realms of teaching, research, and service, the three metrics by which a university's success or failure is measured.

There was nothing in the video on how the VC was able to raise the quality of teaching or research or how under their leadership lecturers in the university published papers in top-tier journals, won fellowships, awards, grants, or made patentable discoveries and inventions.

There was nothing about improving institutional governance and town and gown relations and interface.

You can imagine my unsettling surprise yesterday, then, when I joined a Zoom lecture given by a former VC of UniAbuja at the just concluded University of Texas African Studies Conference in which he reeled out a list of his accomplishments, which were all physical infrastructures.

I had to ask him why Nigerian VCs are now sounding more and more like political executive office holders boasting about the infrastructures built and commissioned during their tenure.

I asked him why I don't hear VCs boasting about how they raised the quality of teaching, how they built or rebuilt a research culture in their institution, how they tackled ethical problems, how they stamped out sexual harassment and plagiarism, and how they raised academic standards, leading to measurable upshots in the teaching, research, and service metrics.

His answer to my question touched on some of his intangible accomplishments in the aforementioned areas, but he soon lapsed into the familiar rhetorical territory of how he completed infrastructure projects started by his predecessors and initiated several new ones.

I realized that political practice and rhetoric in Nigeria's pretend democracy has crept into and polluted university administration. Little wonder that university VCship contests are eerily similar to gubernatorial electoral contests.

When will our colleagues who administer Nigerian universities realize that buildings and physical structures do not make a university?

Someone said physical infrastructures are the only achievements that resonate politically with Nigerians. That may be so, but the VCs are not politicians, so why are they pandering to politicized understandings of success and achievement?

My Facebook interlocutors have chimed in to correct me. They insist that, for all practical operational purposes, Vice Chancellors of Nigerian public universities are politicians with the personas, modus operandi, and networks rooted in the world of politics and its sinews of power and patronage.

[Toyin Falola]

To be a VC is to be settled for life! A VC is the chairman of the tender’s board. This is the locale of power, not the River Niger Hall where 10 students stay in a room!

Without stealing a dime, there will be a minimum of N---,000,000 in your account when you complete your term-- as savings. I have calculated the figure even in a non- corrupt manner as you don’t eat from your pay, buy petrol, pay domestics, etc. The VC of one University snacks on bush meat for N2 million a year. You make double salary for a few years after your term as accumulated leave.

A VC worries less about students but more about the political system itself, and those who represent power…governor, senators, the king of his city, etc. He is not put in power to manage students but to deliver and distribute largesse.

Not the VCs of private universities! Those are as poor as rats who choose to live in a church.

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Moses Ochonu:

Please dont be embarrased, but maybe share the achievements reeled out by a retiring University President in your own clime for comparison.  I can assure you that it will be more than just teaching, research and service that you recommended.

In reeling out achievements, one invariably starts with a baseline  and only emphasizes those areas that you have advanced or maintained (if commendable), and ignore those that you have regressed, leaving the latter to detractors!

What are the parameters to look at?

*Students Admissions, Retention and Graduation

*Academic Staff Matters

Non Academic Staff Matters

Courses and Curriculum

Physical Learning Facilities

Physical Living Facilities

Quality Control and Acceeditation

Funding

Governance, Senate and Council Relations

Community and National Relations and Recognitions

International Relations and Recognitions

Alumni Relatiins

Job Oppotunitiess for Graduates

And so on

A retiring VC who frames his speech by addressing his or her achievements along the above lines cannot go wrong.  His emphasis will be a function of his integrity..

There you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

Pioneer VC FU Otuoke

2011 - 2016

--

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Oga,

You are right. My Facebook people have flooded the update with comments. The overarching sentiment in these comments is that the public university VCs are for all intents and purposes politicians. They are often sponsored or backed by political godfathers outside the academy. When they run for the office of VC they run a campaign replete with posters and other promotional paraphernalia, and have political fundraisers, have campaign committees, etc. They drive around with an escort and in a security convoy. And, as my interlocutors have said, the VCs often have to pledge allegiance to their godfathers and make "returns." There is even the recent case of a Professor in one of the Southern universities, who made a public show of registering as a member of a particular political party in preparation for running for the position of VC.

I have personally witnessed vulgar displays of power by public university VCs. On one occasion, when the VC entered the venue of an event I was attending, everyone, including the VC's professorial colleagues, stood up and only sat down after the VC was seated. Not only that, I saw several colleagues, some of them older professors, scrambling, genuflecting, and performing other nauseatingly obsequious acts. This is exactly what happens at political events around the country. 

But the comment that takes the proverbial cake and is the most compelling evidence that these VCs are indeed politicians is this one from journalist Abdulazeez Abdulazeez. How the heck is the VC's wife "First Lady" of the university? This is a direct read off from the political arena, an unabashed reproduction of the performances and aesthetics of power in government houses across the country and in the Nigerian presidency. I reproduce Abdulazeez's comment below:

"Most of them reincarnate exactly what happens in the larger political context in their own environment.

A recent VC of BUK boasted of the number of professors he "produced". Indeed he produced them because a lot of them were literally lifted through the requirements to attain the rank, just so he would produce the 50 professors he pledged, during his tenure. He actually surpassed the target. 

In 2016 I attended convocation lecture at UniZik. I was shocked by how the VC was being lavishly praised at every turn of the event, by the MC. The greater embarrassment, however, was recognising "the first lady of the university". Yes! His wife was "recognised" the way a hagiographer would a governor's wife at a public function."

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Bolaji,

My sample may not be big enough, but the VC achievement lists I have seen are basically lists of TETFUND-, Dangote-, CBN- and (fill in the blank)-sponsored infrastructure projects at these institutions. I don't see the mix of physical and intangible/quality/process/honors metrics you outlined above. More scandalously, none of the accomplishment narratives I have seen mention teaching and research, the two most important aspects of a university's operations. I think you are right in your last sentence. I extrapolate from that to state that the VCs leave out those areas because, on those important quality metrics, they know that their institutions have regressed or stalled, hence their silence.

 In fairness to the former UniAbuja VC who gave the referenced lecture, he did mention that he fought cultism and encouraged First Class and exceptional 2:1 graduates of the institution to take up employment in university. And at least he did not boast about "producing" professors or paying salaries.

And by the way, your VCship was/is atypical. You were the pioneer VC of a university that started from scratch and you literally had to have the institution built. That is very different from the profile of a VC of an established university who is only boasting about building this or that (basically signing contracts or liaising with TETFUND and other funders) structure or "producing" this or that number of professors, regularly paying salaries, etc.

[Jonathan Okeke]

The Nigeria university system is a case of broken arrow. It is overrun by charlatans. It has been so for more than a decade now. The rot in personalia is inspired from the town by politicians who appoint lecturers, Vice Chancellors and other principal officers, and motivated from within by poverty-disfigured colleagues who sing praises for meals.

Most of the appointments are those who should never be in the Ivory Tower. House helps, mistresses and low level security officials regularly become lecturers. Folk who have no research profiles (at least, nationally) in their fields become Vice Chancellors. Now, these qualitatively nonesensical individuals are in majority. The real academics have become endangered species. Their presence makes the majority uncomfortable who regularly conspire to have them destroyed. Vice Chancellors fire the real academics left in the system at will to establish totalitarian regimes in the universities. 

Recently, one Vice Chancellor vied for a senatorial seat while still 'ruling' their university. They splashed money everywhere, paid for, and collected chieftaincy titles from every community in their constituency. Then, they challenged a sitting governor's candidate and lost, moved to another party and paid everyone who had a price. Finally, they lost. Colleagues were hungry but there was no money left in the university's account to pay them even for PG supervisions, etc. 

Las las, it was time to leave office. They wanted to install a successor to cover and continue the destruction. But they had bitten the fingers that installed them as a Vice Chancellor during the ill-fated senatorial ambition.  And on the day of election, the town struck again and installed someone else. Now, they are remembered as "that criminal!"

Vice Chancellorship is now a ticket to mainstream national politics. But true Vice Chancellors do not advertise the services they rendered. Such services should be able to speak for themselves. Those of them who give such speeches in the media are politicians, unfortunately!

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

TF:

Well, we may say this is a carryover of American private university system.  It will never happen in a British university!

In a private university in the US where I taught, the wife of the university president was actually ' recognised' in the assembly continually as the ' First Lady'.  One of my Nigerian Faculty colleague actually stated , 'this man should be a politician.'  

The president insisted his demeanor was a carry over from other universities in the US ( including Southern at Baton Rouge and Virginia Tech.)

OAA

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To be a VC is to be settled for life! A VC is the chairman of the tender’s board. This is the locale of power, not the River Niger Hall where 10 students stay in a room!

Without stealing a dime, there will be a minimum of N---,000,000 in your account when you complete your term-- as savings. I have calculated the figure even in a non- corrupt manner as you don’t eat from your pay, buy petrol, pay domestics, etc. The VC of one University snacks on bush meat for N2 million a year. You make double salary for a few years after your term as accumulated leave.

A VC worries less about students but more about the political system itself, and those who represent power…governor, senators, the king of his city, etc. He is not put in power to manage students but to deliver and distribute largesse.

Not the VCs of private universities! Those are as poor as rats who choose to live in a church.

 

 

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, April 4, 2021 at 8:29 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

 

I am embarrassed that my colleagues, Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities, are mimicking the tropes and templates often deployed by politicians to talk about their "accomplishments" in office.

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Moses:

First some facts:

1.  The Federal or State government VC is indeed a political position, the university being an education parastatal funded fully or partially by the government.   The salary and allowances are fixed by Government   That does not mean that the person does not merit the position academically and administratively, it is just that being probably one of three qualified persons recommended to the Visitor - either the President or the Governor - that Visitor's decision can only be deemed political.

2.  A VC is primus interpares among Professors within an institution, and must carry both an aura of respect and be accorded one too, just as a Head Teacher of a Primary School or a Principal of  Sevondary School.  So for colleagues to stand up when he enters a gathering eg Senate meeting or Convocation, and not to be seated until his say-so is not to be imperious.  It happens everywhere in the world.

By the way, I consider the University a hierarchical organization, with Grad Assistants, Assistant Lecturers, Lecturera Grade 2 and 1, Senior Lecturers, Associate Professors, and Professors.  So a cascade of respect without terror up and down the line is not out of place.

3.   While indeed it is true that a VC earns double a full Professor's salary while VC - on top of quite a number of executive perks like fuelling, travel allowances, etc -  he or she reverts to his former salary upon completion.  So how that amounts to having made it for the rest of life is doubtful, unless he has stolen hundreds of millions or billions of Naira put under the pillow.  In my own case, I had dollar obligations, so my effective dollar salary declined from N159 to $1 in 2011 to 360 to 1 to almost 500 to 1 for fixed Naira earnings by the time I left in 2016!  But it was still worth the experience.

4.  I did get armed protection while VC, because there are opportunistic and nefarious people out there out to get at any and all politicians, including VCs.  I was also in the Niger-Delta, and did not want to be Bush-meat for anybody.  Luckily, I was never under any serious threatening situation 

5.  Finally, I did my best to demystify the VCship - coming from a university childhood background myself - so much so that that was a complaint recorded against me when the NUC Accreditation Committee came visiting in 2015: "This VC don let the students see us finish!" - by some lecturers, because I insisted on mutual respect of students and staff.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Bolaji:

I think Moses observations are cogent, but as his Facebook interlocutors ( and yours truly in this forum) have pointed out, a VC's position is necessarily in part political, compared to say the position of a Dean.

You are right in asking him to compare speeches with ( not necessarily retiring) American university presidents.

Every commencement day, my American university president regalled parents, board members and members of the public with infrastructural achievements since the last meet, what is in the pipeline, how expansion and retention is apace, innovation planned and even the grants applied for to make such innovations possible.

If the speech is not well packaged to position the thrust of achievements on higher educational productivity, the emphasis might be lost, and loss of emphasis might easily be detected by the likes of Moses, to whom it may sound like a political broadcast by a politician.

I can still recall how the late president to whom I referred gleefully referenced at a commencement ceremony, how he had acquired a radio broadcast studio on campus  for the use of student and what financial aid made it possible ( a project he embarked upon to spite one of us Faculty, originally from Sierra Leone, who threatened to withdraw his personal broadcast equipment which he used to teach the Mass Comm. students because he felt the president exploited the Faculty.)

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

A VC is primus interpares among Professors within an institution, and must carry both an aura of respect and be accorded one too, just as a Head Teacher of a Primary School or a Principal of  Sevondary School.  So for colleagues to stand up when he enters a gathering eg Senate meeting or Convocation, and not to be seated until his say-so is not to be imperious.  It happens everywhere in the world.

---Bolaji Aluko

The event I referenced was not a senate meeting or convocation (although in our own faculty senate, in which I served for three years until 2019), when the chancellor visited, no one stood up or did anything disgustingly obsequious. Nor does anyone have to stand and wait for the president/chancellor to be seated at convocation before they can sit back down. I can tolerate a senate meeting where there are protocols of hierarchy and codified respectability that require certain practices to be observed. But to see fellow professors outside of such a formalized setting scrambling to help the VC to his seat, and/or to carry his bag, and bowing down to greet him, etc, was off-putting. That does not happen "everywhere in the world"--certainly not in North American and European universities that I am familiar with.

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[Toyin Falola]

Moses:

1. Is there a global/universal cultural practice? No. What is defined as “respect” varies. One number one cause of divorce in my ongoing immigration studies is about respect. When I ask men what they mean by “my wife disrespects me,” the answers are as varied as she talks back to she goes to a function without seeking my permission. So also is the notion of “authority.” Variables are not universal.
2. Where they do the “cultural,” separate it from where they do the excesses. I doubt I will appear in any Nigerian university, and they won’t carry my bag. Don’t impose a western frame on this. My grey hair is at work!
3. In societies where resources are scarce, and the distribution is located in power, individuals are not fools—they do what is needed to get what they want, and they abuse you behind your back! Do you think if I want my son to be admitted to the Medical School as part of the University’s quota, I won't say “yes sir” to the VC?
4. Power, by its very nature, is idiosyncratic. Trump did what you are talking about. Personalities are embedded in the management of power. That I don’t get angry is my personal choice since 1967.

 

Individuals are very clever, and cunning as well. They respond to incentives, and they follow protocols that will let them fulfill their desire. If I am assured there is heaven and hell, and those who follow Jesus Christ will go to heaven, I will go to Church everyday!!!

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

Moses:

Nobody should be obsequious to the other, least of all in a University, least of all one professor to another, profedsors being people in general who have attained knowledge that other colleague professors know nothing about.

As to getting up out of respect, it looks awkward if you are the only one sitting down when all the others are up, as if you are trying to make a statement against the fellow. However, I am not averse to sitting back down quicker than most if the invitation to sit back down is not given after a respectably short interval.

I yield.

Bolaji Aluko

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[Mobolaji Aluko]

My VC-ship was indeed atypical:  my baseline was zero students, staff, buildings, accredited programs, promoted staff or graduates, etc, so stating my achievements in all the areas that I outlined before was pretty easy.

But I did spend some time trying to create what I considered a unique Otuoka academic community - some midway between the typical Nigerian University that I attended and those four or five universities broad that I was either a student or staff at.  I did not succeed - the time (five calendar years, three operational years)  was too short and my successor was completely  uninterested - but at least I tried.

But in assembling lecturers from at least twenty universities from around the world, there were Nigerian professors who admitted that:

1.  University budgets were hardly fully presented in Senate as they were at Otioke

2.  Students were never as convinced that their interests were paramount, and their complaints would be heard, even if not always fulfilled

3.  If the VC should not be treated as a god, then certainly not the Deans, HODs, the Registrar, Bursar, etc.  This I believed helped lessen the neurotic atmosphere that pervades universities worldwide, particularly in Nigeria.

There you have it.

Bolaji Aluko 

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Standing up for the president has been done at CCSU

from time to time. We have done  this as a 

form of decorum not servility.  

Infrastructural  update by the American university President is routine.I have listened to this at 

many opening  addresses.

In  the  US university system  of  M. A, there is no sexual harassment, no corruption, no weak students and no infrastructure update, apparently.  Is this the mythical academic heaven?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali

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Sent: Monday, April 5, 2021 12:09 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

"Infrastructural  update by the American university President is routine.I have listened to this at 

many opening  addresses."

Here comes the whataboutism, equivalency, soft bigotry of low expectation, Africans-can-do-no-wrong-and-should-not-be-criticized alphabet soup Afrocentrism brigade. Infrastructural updates in addresses or institutional bulletins are different from a retired VC/President devoting 99 percent of their stewardship speech and/or video to "I built this," "I commissioned that," or I started constructing this or that building, with no mention of pedagogical, research, and intellectual projects undertaken. Perhaps you should study an issue carefully and acquaint yourself experientially and otherwise with it before lunging in with your predictable "black-man-good-white-man-bad" response.

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Oga,

I agree that culture inflects and shapes practices in the academy, and that we should not conflate what is cultural with what is idiosyncratic. I would say that by the same token we should not use culture as an alibi to excuse or tolerate expressions and performances of obsequiousness that are clearly outside the cultural register of respect for authority, learning, and age. 

As an African raised in that culture, I recognize and appreciate the elaborate, if unwritten, rules of conduct that attend age, wealth, and power differentials. If I see you going walking with a heavy bag, my instinct would be to run and grab it from you, relieve you of it. My being a professor would not prevent me from doing that. However, I would be doing it purely because age difference requires it in the context of societal social hierarchies and obligations that they impose.  And even at that, I will not do it at an event in which there are designated ushers, and I most certainly would not be running after you and behaving like a fool around you, making a fool of myself, upending protocols, making myself a nuisance around you, and putting on an elaborate show that exhibits nothing but a suck up, ass-kissing predilection. That is not culture. It is vulgar sucking up. As you yourself said.

I admit that sometimes cultural protocols of respect can mesh with suck-up, contrived shows of respect and deference, and that such exhibitionary performances of "respect" can intrude into genuine cultural rituals of respect. In most cases, however, we can tell the difference. As you yourself said: 

"In societies where resources are scarce, and the distribution is located in power, individuals are not fools—they do what is needed to get what they want, and they abuse you behind your back! Do you think if I want my son to be admitted to the Medical School as part of the University’s quota, I won't say “yes sir” to the VC?"

I agree. That for me is where we should locate this problem. It happens a lot outside the university in Nigeria. You see people old enough to birth a big man/woman running after them, holding their briefcases, and behaving sheepishly around them. That is not culture but a function of the upending of culture by the expediency of survival in an economy marked by scarcity and precarity. That practice has now found a home in the academy, and it is common to see much younger colleagues who are VCs or Deans pushing around their elder-colleagues or the latter willfully sucking up to the former to curry favor and to establish themselves in the former's good graces.

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

By the way, below is the TOC of a document produced by a former VC of UI. It is titled Account of Stewardship, and I am told that it was released six months to the expiration of his 5-year term. I believe this adds nuance to the discussion. Clearly this is a much more comprehensive and less political summation of a Vice Chancellorship tenure than the ones that were my point of reference.

Table of Contents 

Content

Section	Theme	Page
1.	Introduction	3
2.	Academic Matters	4
3.	Pedagogical Leadership for Africa Project	13
4.	Information Technology and Media Services	16
5.	Staff Development and Welfare	21
6.	Student Matters	30
7.	The University of Ibadan Library System	47
8.	Governance Issues	48
9.	Infrastructural Development and Legacy Projects	55
10.	Funding and Fund Management	57
11.	Major Benefactions Received by the University	59
12.	Public Private Partnership (PPP) Initiatives	62
13.	Research, Innovation and Strategic Partnerships	63
14.	Some Recent Major Grants to the University	71
15.	Capacity Building Workshops	75
16.	Publications	76
17.	Internationalisation	77
18.	Honorary Degrees and Fellowships	82
19.	Naming of Buildings and Streets	84
20.	Conflict Resolution	86
21.	University of Ibadan Women’s Society	88
22.	Effective Communication	90
23.	Open and Distance Education	91

1.	Changing the Mindset of Staff and Students	94
2.	Community Service	95
3.	Electronic Voting	96
4.	Staff Disciplinary Matters	97
5.	Other Emerging Issues	100
6.	COVID-19, The New Normal and POST COVID-19	107
7.	National Academic/Professional Accreditation and Global Ranking	109
	Commendation and Reccomendation	112
	Appendices	113

 

[Gloria Emeagwali]

Perhaps you should give some credit where credit is due and suggest that

additionally there should be some focus on pedagogy.Your point will be  better taken. I see absolutely nothing

wrong  with a VC paying attention to infrastructure as well. You are free to pull out your  Afrocentric caricature

as if there is something wrong in an Africa centered approach.

Those who have read my works know better.

Thank you for your comment.

On Apr 5, 2021, at 15:57, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Toyin Falola]

Moses:

Two points to respond to:

 

1. I think the document on stewardship is common. It is actually the most boring part of the convocation ceremony.

 

2. Like here, there is technically no longer retirement age, to mean that a formal disengagement in one University can be followed by a contract appointment elsewhere. The elderly man running after a VC may be more about contract renewal than anything else. Individuals don’t want their honor to be compromised. I am now in the age of “no consequences,” to mean that I don’t have to protect my job, I have no college expenses to pay, I have no car note, I have no mortgage. Thus, I can refuse to talk to anyone, greet anyone, be polite, etc. Anyone who resides in the age of consequences must play a different kind of politics from mine. Individuals are the smartest creation of God. We see what they do, but we do not always understand them. Oral cultures have a different epistemology—the person who prostrates to the VC may spend 3 hours insulting and abusing him over beer. In oral cultures, what they say when you are not there is the key, not what they do when you are with them. In patriarchal and authoritarian cultures, individuals master the art of deception, the politics of speaking in tongues, the habitus of ambiguities. “I did not say so sir!” “That is not what I meant sir.” “I am sorry sir”. And you follow up by calling Oga’s friend or wife---“Mummy, do please beg oga for me—I was misunderstood.” In one of those tortoise fables, “never get into trouble if you don’t know how to get out of trouble!”

 

TF

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

GE:

When we did commencements as detailed previously, the situation of us standing up for the president did not arise because we Faculty were always enrobed and in the same procession as the president.  

We all remained standing  ( including the president) after filing in, prayers were said after which we assumed our seats and the standing MC then initiated the programme.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: "Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emea...@ccsu.edu>

Date: 05/04/2021 20:43 (GMT+00:00)

To: meoc...@gmail.com, USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

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Standing up for the president has been done at CCSU

from time to time. We have done  this as a 

form of decorum not servility.  

Infrastructural  update by the American university President is routine.I have listened to this at 

many opening  addresses.

In  the  US university system  of  M. A, there is no sexual harassment, no corruption, no weak students and no infrastructure update, apparently.  Is this the mythical academic heaven?

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>

Sent: Monday, April 5, 2021 12:09 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

A VC is primus interpares among Professors within an institution, and must carry both an aura of respect and be accorded one too, just as a Head Teacher of a Primary School or a Principal of  Sevondary School.  So for colleagues to stand up when he enters a gathering eg Senate meeting or Convocation, and not to be seated until his say-so is not to be imperious.  It happens everywhere in the world.

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

GE:

All I know is that what Moses highlights happens in some institutions of higher learning both in America and Nigeria.

The Mass Comm professor in America ( this is not just an African problem) who tried to play the role Moses is playing here lost his job as consequence.  This was in a setting where even the Vice President for Academic Affairs will be curtsying ( slightly kneeling) every time she addressed the president in public,  comes in with sir, and yes sir replies to the presidents every verbal queries ( thereby inviting Faculty to follow her cues) portraying the president as a demi- god, tongue lashing any Faculty who appeared to be falling out of line with statements like 'he pays your salary,' etc, etc.

Mutual respect among academics goes a long way to promote the right atmosphere, but when a few go overboard with obsequious behaviour, it is often at the expense of other Faculty, to attempt to earn through obsequious behaviour, what they dont think they merit through hard work within correct time frame.  

People resorting to that ploy in all academic encounters ( not just in formal institutional settings with VCs, e.g forums etc) are simply showing lack of self esteem and self worth.  Its an invitation to people placed in position of power and authority to use their power in their favour at the expense of others, any way they may devise.

The converse is also true, that just because the VC was your former colleague, Faculty should not behave in such a way that can be interpreted that they are disrespecting the authority and position as VC while they are still in office, like the professor above who said to the president in a Faculty meeting that because enough parking spaces were not provided for Faculty, he would simply park in the space allotted for the president if he found no other space.  The president replied that his presentation lacked merit.

Institutional chief executives are paid to run the university system and solve systemic problems, they are not expected to be treated like demi gods for doing the jobs they are paid to do. Their carriage and demeanor as Bolaji Aluko suggests should communicate with humility that they are the chief servant of the institution on whose shoulders the burden of accountability rests, and not that its their temporary personal vineyard.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com>

Date: 06/04/2021 00:01 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

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Perhaps you should give some credit where credit is due and suggest that

additionally there should be some focus on pedagogy.Your point will be  better taken. I see absolutely nothing

wrong  with a VC paying attention to infrastructure as well. You are free to pull out your  Afrocentric caricature

as if there is something wrong in an Africa centered approach.

Those who have read my works know better.

Thank you for your comment.

On Apr 5, 2021, at 15:57, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:



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[Harrow, Kenneth]

i agree with olayinka completely. one way to keep a balance between figures in authority and the faculty is to be on a first name basis.

that might not wash well at all in africa, where more formal address is the norm.

i remember when i started teaching at msu in 1966, i joined a faculty whose members were old enough to be my grandfathers. it wasn't quite easy for me, at 23, to call them by their first names, but i learned to do so. similarly, i was used to calling my students by their last names, as i had been taught. but in the midwest things were more informal, and after a trimester i firstnamed them.

then, oddly, i grew old, and the kids, my students, started to call me by my first name, without me asking them to. and i was old enough to have taught their parents, which i had done in some cases.

so the world turns.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Sent: Tuesday, April 6, 2021 5:55 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

 

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

My experiences at University College, London, SOAS, University of London, University of Kent and Cambridge coming after my experience as student and academic at the University of Benin changed the way I look at the world.

True, I was not a member of staff in any of those places in England but I was able to observe, to some degree how people related to each other.

In all those English universities, the VC  was hardly visible. Most students and perhaps a significant number of non-academic staff did not know them.

I observed the VC of SOAS standing in the busy courtyard at the entry to SOAS and from the no attention he got I wonder how many people, if any knew him.

I was struck by seeing Malcolm Grant, then VC of UCL, waking past Birkbeck and SOAS to an apartment across the road, alone, unrecognized by anyone.

I attended a lecture given by the Cambridge VC. The people working at courting him were students, not staff, and they went about it with some dignity.

Such academic cultures are healthier than ours in Nigeria.

I was used to a culture in which the VC was a potentate who never moved alone, whom everyone knew etc etc

  UK universities publicize books published by their staff, prizes won by their staff, among other accomplishments by staff.

Moses has a very strong point. Opportunities for research that will put us on the world map are staring us in the face.

The people who have an international presence are the musicians and Nollywood and increasingly, our tech industry.

It would be great if strategic scholarly initiatives were more prominent in the profiles of our universities. 

toyin

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[Toyin Falola]

Ken:

The very thought of calling people by their first names should be banished in people’s minds! This is a no-no. “Respect” works in abstract and concrete terms, as in very mundane things of who first sit down, the chair you choose when you enter into a room, how you address people. They are connected with the more significant ideas on honor and respect. That label may be the only thing the man cherishes. That Mrs. you remove from a woman’s name may be one of the most critical things, she cherishes. Anything that a specific culture regards as disrespectful must be left alone for a time to take care of.

I got into trouble by not calling people “Dr.—, “Professor ---“ as they see those titles as part of their being, their essence, the determinant of their success.

I just want to be called TF, not a professor. But that is me. People sign off a correspondence by calling themselves Professor --. Just leave them alone.

TF

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Well said!

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

-------- Original message --------

From: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>

Date: 06/04/2021 14:41 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

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My experiences at University College, London, SOAS, University of London, University of Kent and Cambridge coming after my experience as student and academic at the University of Benin changed the way I look at the world.

True, I was not a member of staff in any of those places in England but I was able to observe, to some degree how people related to each other.

In all those English universities, the VC  was hardly visible. Most students and perhaps a significant number of non-academic staff did not know them.

I observed the VC of SOAS standing in the busy courtyard at the entry to SOAS and from the no attention he got I wonder how many people, if any knew him.

I was struck by seeing Malcolm Grant, then VC of UCL, waking past Birkbeck and SOAS to an apartment across the road, alone, unrecognized by anyone.

I attended a lecture given by the Cambridge VC. The people working at courting him were students, not staff, and they went about it with some dignity.

Such academic cultures are healthier than ours in Nigeria.

I was used to a culture in which the VC was a potentate who never moved alone, whom everyone knew etc etc

  UK universities publicize books published by their staff, prizes won by their staff, among other accomplishments by staff.

Moses has a very strong point. Opportunities for research that will put us on the world map are staring us in the face.

The people who have an international presence are the musicians and Nollywood and increasingly, our tech industry.

It would be great if strategic scholarly initiatives were more prominent in the profiles of our universities. 

toyin

On Tue, 6 Apr 2021 at 13:28, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

OA

I have witnessed four Presidents (VCs) in the US since my 

teaching  at ABU and Unilorin and I can say that three of the four spent most of their addresses talking

about infrastructure. They would roll out a five year plan or even ten year plan related to the subject.

(Two of these VCs had to resign because of inappropriate 

conduct.)

I am bringing this issue up again because of an 

uncanny coincidence earlier today. The matter

surfaced in a faculty discussion that concluded that too much attention had  been placed on infrastructure as opposed to the library. Whatt?? My thoughts went immediately to MO. In other words his  incisive critique about Nigerian VCs fits exactly well for this US campus. I couldn’t but smile at the coincidence.

As for the British universities, well Toyin is right.

You don’t see them.  It is as if they are in hibernation.

Theirs is the proverbial invisible hand.  I spent a year as a Visiting Scholar at Oxford  in 1990, and then a semester in 2000 or thereabouts at QEH, also at Oxford,   and never ever saw or heard the VC. I wish I did. I can say with certainty, though, that he should have spent some time on infrastructure. The place felt quaint and outmoded - but the library was great.

0n a different note,  in some Caribbean countries  your salary was less than that of someone educated at the University of the West Indies if you had an American degree. I recall an American trained

Teacher with a Bachelor’s degree,  at the high school level complaining bitterly at the

”injustice.”   To ever up you had to get a MA. I don’t know if that still applies. And what about Russian trained graduates.They were marked down 

In Nigeria and a lot of countries during the Cold War.

Politics and academics are often bedfellows wherever you go, unfortunately.

Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali

Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association

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Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Are University Vice Chancellors Politicians?

 

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[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

GE

Well, I taught with Russian academics in the US.  They were paid the same as others but they complained a lot as if they expected the US to be Eldorado or that Russian equivalents were far better.

Again it depends on the university in the US.  The VC hardly talked about detailed infrastures at my US graduate studies commencement but he made me realise that the US university system was first and foremost a money making business and not a social service at all by revealing how much profit the university made at the end of the operating year.

The only time I saw my VC in the UK was during my commencement after graduate studies.  It was held at the Barbican civic centre because the state of the art permanent campus ( just like Ifè in Nigeria easily the most beautiful university campus in London if not the whole country) was not yet completed then.  

If he wanted to dwell on the numerous state of the art architectural masterpieces (some shaped like sailing ships) and facilities under construction, then we would have spent the whole ceremony doing just that!  Because since he did not dwell on it I thought it was not remarkable, like the temporary site where I took courses, until I took a drive round and was so proud.  

Usually, in the UK system, its the invited commencement speaker's speech that everyone waits for and not the VC's, like the US university I cited above where the VC only dwelt on the university's profitability.

I never saw my VC when I taught at the University of West London ( which Toyin Adepoju once referenced.)

The day I felt so proud of the personae of UK  VCs was when the Common's Education Committee summoned the VC of the University of East Anglia over allegations that universities were giving places that should go to locals to foreigners.

He gave the parliamentarians an ear bashing that not only debunked the allegations, but added  that they were fee paying students that attracted investments into the country for courses too technical for locals interests. 

He made the parliamentarians look so stupid on prime time television with his commanding rhetoric, I felt so proud to be associated with such academics who demonstrated that those who control the knowledge industry are the real bosses of the politicians.

OAA

Sent from my Galaxy

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