I have had the challenge and privilege of leading universities on three continents: Africa, North America, and, most recently, Europe, at the American University in Bulgaria. But I will never forget in a hurry my experiences at the American University of Nigeria, Yola.
The AUN, where I was president from 2010 to 2017 and then again from 2021 to 2022, is explicit about its mission to be “Africa’s development university” and to ensure that the local community and region, much of which is impoverished, benefit from university programs and projects.
At AUN, the mission necessarily drove how we developed curricula, recruited students and faculty, and explained ourselves not only to students and parents but to our sceptical and sometimes hostile host societies, which were unclear about and at times suspicious of the purpose of an American education. At AUN, for several years, our very survival depended on believing in, telling, and living a coherent and compelling story. As we were threatened by Boko Haram, a violent Islamist insurgent group whose Hausa name translates loosely as “Western education is evil”, the mutually supportive and trusting relationship we developed with our local community kept us safe and allowed us to live our development mission.
