Professor Oyedunni Arulogun, a foremost Health Promotion and Education specialist assumed office as the second female Vice Chancellor of Chrisland University, Abeokuta, Ogun State on November 1, 2024. In this interview with MODUPE GEORGE, she shares her vision for the 10-year-old university, her strategies to achieve them and her position on other topical issues on Nigeria’s education system. Excerpts…
Y OU are a woman of many firsts considering your academic journey at the University of Ibadan; the first female Professor of Health Promotion and Education, Dean, Faculty of Public Health, and University Orator. Did you ever dream of becoming a Vice Chancellor too?
I was thinking maybe someday but it’s not a direct yes answer. I didn’t start out to be first in this or that, things just turned out to be like that by the grace of God. However, as a young girl, I toyed with different disciplines; at some point I wanted to read medicine and at another time I didn’t know what I wanted. At one point I just told myself, it doesn’t matter what I become anymore, but what matters is excellence in whatever I find myself doing. So, excellence engrafted in the grace of God is my driving force in all that I have become in life.
Tell us about your over two decade journey into academia?
My journey into academia was interesting; when I joined my department in UI, I was the only female staff member. Even when I was in University College Hospital (UCH), I was the only female. I could remember the day I was being interviewed for the job; the dean of the faculty then said, “you are coming into an all-male department; how are you going to cope?” I remember telling him that I’m used to it, as I have always been one among so many. My academic career journey has been fun and, at the same time, challenging. Personally, I love challenges, and really, a lot was thrown at me then as a young lecturer. I was tasked with a lot of assignments at the faculty level. I joined UI as lecturer one; I was the youngest, so in quote, ‘I did all the dirty jobs,’ with joy though. I wasn’t complaining, and in the long run, I became very popular on campus. At the same time, that gave me the opportunity to know how the system works, and I got to make all the connections. At the end of the day, all the errands I was running paid off. If I was not going on those errands joyfully with all the passion, I would not have become a two-term director of UI’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation unit until my appointment here in CU and as the dean of my faculty as well as the university orator. If I had been dodging or doing all those official assignments grudgingly, I wouldn’t have become who I am today.
As a public health specialist turned administrator, how does it feel sitting in the capacity of a vice chancellor?
My training as a public health specialist readily makes me an administrator. In fact, if you are in public health, it’s like you are a master of everything because you are managing people’s health, wellbeing; you are building their capacities. Most importantly, you are managing resources – man, materials and time. As a public health specialist, you are a manager of resources, whose engagement with the community is well-planned to make the people buy into what you are doing. It’s about bringing everyone on board with all of them having the same vision to make your programme sustainable
Part of what prepared me for leadership roles is my upbringing. I came from a family of five children—three girls and two boys. To the glory of God, the three girls and one of the boys are all professors today, while one of the boys ended up becoming an agricultural engineer who later went into full-time ministry. There was no differential in our upbringing. When we were in secondary school, whoever got home first did the cooking; it doesn’t matter whether it was any of the girls or boys. I usually change the tyres of my car, but I stopped when I had an accident and fractured one of my arms. When I got married, and whenever the bulbs got burnt in the house, I would carry a stool, climb up and fix it until my husband said one day, “Madam, remember there is a man in this house.” I was brought up never to see myself as a lesser gender.
Can you share your vision for this university and strategies you are putting in place to achieve them?
I came into a university where there is passion for excellence. So, I have come to maintain that standard. For anyone (leader) to succeed, you don’t remove the ancient landmark. I have come to build a university where the staff and students are happy. A university, where it is not just the academic aspect of students’ lives that is being positively affected, but the building of a whole life that is based on good character. Like I was taught in secondary school, knowledge without excellent character takes no one anywhere. No matter how highly placed you are in life, if you lack character, you are nobody. You must believe that the next person has value. I want to ensure that the education the students are taking out of here is a life-long learning that will make them look back and say thank God I passed through Chrisland University.
More so, we are going to build academic excellence with innovation; we cannot afford to continue to do things the same way and expect different results. For the staff, I want to see a university that is inclusive, where everybody is carried along, with no one left behind. A university where the workers will love to come the next day and every voice is heard. Also, I’m going to be harping on social impact too, it is not enough to impact the system alone; the impact should also be felt by the community around us. Of course, for every university, research is important; hence, I am also looking out for a university where the research skills of both academic staff and students is strengthened, where we can begin to come up with ground-breaking research and informed policies that would bring about new discoveries and student-centred leadership. For us in CU, our primary stakeholders are the students, so I want to see students who are happy and could boldly say, ‘Oh! I have the ears of my vice chancellor and that of my lecturers, and I know that I am protected.’ We are also going to be strengthening the institution’s resilience. Though we know challenges will come, we will grow our resilience to overcome every challenge. These, among others, are some of my visions for the university.
To achieve this vision, like I said when you have just come to a new place, you must first of all observe what is on the ground. The administration role is a continuum; you must look at what has already been done to know what needs to be readjusted and what are the new things to be added to ensure that what is existing is sustained and strengthened. We will handle things as they evolve. As opportunity arises to re-strategise to infuse new things, we will not hold back. So, this is what I have been doing.
Considering your smooth slide into leadership, what do you have to say about the power tussle and the do-or-die politics at play in vice chancellorship appointments at public university, where you are coming from?
As humans our approach to life when it comes to attaining leadership position should not be that; it is a must that we be there. First and foremost, leadership is all about service, so if you are not given the opportunity, so be it. The simpler we take life the simpler life will be for all of us. When it becomes a do-or-die affair, relationships are broken and strained, which is not worth it. Be aware that there is a process in place; allow it to run trusting that those who are in charge of the process will be fair.
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Do you believe in the absolute government’s interference in choosing heads of public tertiary institutions?
Except we want to deceive ourselves there can’t be absolute non-interference from the government, but I would say that the interference should be such that it will strengthen the university at the end of the day, not one that will disintegrate relationships.
How do you intend to attract grants to CU?
Truth be told, funds can never be enough in any capital-intensive project like this. So, what we planned to do is to strengthen the capacity of both staff and students to write competitive grant proposals and win. Writing proposals for grants is a skill. We also intend to establish collaborations, or what we call North-South partnerships in UI, with older institutions such as UI, among others, so as to learn the ropes on how to write and win grants.
You are coming from a system where TETfund picks the bills of most of the big projects in the university; are you aware that that does not obtain in private universities? How prepared are you?
I strongly believe that TETfund should also support private institutions. The reason is that the students in private universities are also Nigerian citizens whose parents are also paying tax. So they should not be excluded from enjoying the facilities their colleagues in public universities are enjoying. Also, sometimes there are trainings that the fund supports both students and staff to be part of; the former should also be allowed to enjoy such.
Recently, there is a clamour that TETfund should be scrapped for NELfund; what is your take?
One of the challenges we have as a nation is what I call policy summersault. What I would say is that those who are in charge of these decisions should think carefully and reason beyond politics too. Let them consider the pros and cons of the decision they are about to make on the matter. The roles of the two bodies are quite different, so they should look at these two entities critically. More so, let’s look at our monitoring systems and block every loophole.
and then