Atiku At 67: The Power Of An Idea By: AMED DEMIRHAN on November 25, 2013 - 4:34am On the 67th birthday celebration of Nigeria’s former Vice President, His Excellency AtikuAbubakar, it is important to reflect on the power of an idea which this iconic African leader has nursed and pursued with unrelenting passion. It is his vision for a robust university education that gives graduates a proper understanding of the challenges facing their country and its villages – poverty, illiteracy, crumbling infrastructures, and government programs that do not systematically address the immediate needs of the native community. This vision lies behind his establishing of the American University of Nigeria. From its modest roots in Yola, AUN has sprouted into Africa’s first Development University, producing students ready with solutions to the continent’s numerous socio- economic problems. Because of their colonial pasts, most African countries have adopted either the British or French educational system although both Britain and France have been in relative decline for more than 100 years. Therefore, it sounds not unreasonable to choose an American style of education since America has been a rising power for the last two centuries. But not everyone agreed. When the AUN founder brought some American academic leaders to Yola and showed them a huge empty field on which to build the university they tried, politely, to talk him out of what they thought was a quixotic venture. One said to him: Sorry, sir, but this is really not a very good place to build a university. They recommended different places. Yola, they felt, was rural and remote, and not all felt that an American style education could work in North East Nigeria. His Excellency, however, insisted on building AUN in the empty field in Yola just eight years ago. Since then AUN has grown and become not just prominent nationally; it is showing up in the international arena as a rising star. Today AUN has students from a number of African countries, the United States of America, and from every state in Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory. They all made their way to Yola. AUN alumni are studying in many prestigious graduate schools across the European Union and the United States. The faculty and administrators actively participate in national and international conferences and professional organizations across the globe. They may work in Yola but they make sure they are at the cutting edge of academic development. While AUN students and faculty are busy with their study and professional activities, they are also very active in the local communities. As a development university, from the President of the University, Professor Margee Ensign, down to the first-year students, everyone has to be involved in community-based projects. These projects could be as simple as painting the walls of a hospital, collecting trash for recycling, tutoring elementary and secondary school students, empowering vulnerable youth with ICT skills through computer training, teaching village women to read and write, creating tournaments to foster community building and peace-building, training Federal universities and colleges faculties and administrators in the latest research techniques, and more. Since libraries are the heart of university research and development, and because I am a librarian, I would like to point out few accomplishments of AUN in this area and how the power of H.E. Atiku Abubakar’s idea has brought excellence to Yola and Nigeria: AUN received the Best Digital Library Services Award from the Committee of University Librarians of Nigerian Universities in November 2012; AUN Library received 100 percent of accreditation score from the National Universities Commission (NUC) after their site visit in April 2013; the AUN e-library project received the American Library Association’s Presidential Citation for Innovative International Library Projects In July 2013. ALA cited the following in granting this extraordinary award to the new university. “For transitioning towards a digital library collection that is more cost effective and increases the number of resources available to students and faculty of the American University of Nigeria;and For increasing the visibility of the new digital library with a new slogan, “AUN e-Library: This is 99.9% of your library collection”; AUN was selected to be among “University libraries: 10 global portraits” selected by the BritishGuardian newspaper academic section in August 2013. We were in august company: the University of Oxford Bodleian Library, New York University Library, from Japan, Hachioji Library, Tama Art University, and others shared our listing. The American Library Association included AUN Library in the list of great libraries of the world because it is innovative in its approach to technology and development. AUN library has more e-books than in most American Academic Libraries e-book collections in America. About 1,000 AUN students and faculty radically increased their research and scientific studies in 2012. One of the best indicators for this is library material usage statistics. Statistics collected between 2011 and 2012 show that on average, AUN students and faculty used 54.3 books, but 45.4 of those are e-books, and 19.5 academic peer-reviewed articles per capita not including open access academic resources usage. When we compare this data to European and American students’ usage of academic libraries, AUN students are above average in library usage and far ahead in e- book usage per capita. Community Development Like all parts and departments of AUN, the library is doing its best to contribute to wider community development. In this regard, the AUN library has offered training to other academicinstitutions free of charge. The AUN Library trained 147 faculty members, administrators, and librarians from the Federal College of Education (FCE) in Yola. In addition, it trained 20 faculty members from Modibbo Adama University of Technology in Yola and 34 teachers from AUN Academy (AUN secondary and middle schools). The intensive weekend training was conducted in AUN Library and AUN facilities were used free of charge. However, the AUN Library contribution to community development is not limited to Yola or Adamawa State. Many universities, state and Federal polytechnics, Federal research institutes, the Nigerian Law School, and secondary schools have sought advice and help from the AUN Library. AUN always generously shares its open access collections with every institution that seeks our help. Therefore, AUN Library, when selecting open access academic resources for its collection, always considers the needs of wider communities as well. We are all in the education endeavor together. In fact, AUN e-Library development has a far-reaching impact beyond Nigeria and Africa. As stated in the ALA Citation, AUN has created a digital library exemplar for other libraries that is cost effective and maintainable and provides more access for more users. AUN international and national visibility is rapidly increasing. AUN has been in the news across the globe from Russia, India, Germany, France, and USA, all over Africa for its success and accomplishments and contribution to development. In this regard AUN is becoming one of the chief positive news makers for the whole of Nigeria and Africa. So far every news publication about AUN internationally has been creating admiration for Nigeria. As a result, some highly respected international institutions have been seeking relations with AUN. Under President Ensign’s guidance, AUN has emerged Nigeria’s most celebrated academic brand and it is not yet ten years old. It won the Distinguished Leadership Award in Personal Excellence (2011), in London, the UK; Africa’s Leading University of the Year Award (2012), Georgia, USA; Best University in Development in Africa (2013), Accra, Ghana and the African Leading Development Institute Award (2013), just to mention a few. All of this has happened in a part of Nigeria where most Nigerians could not have imagined it possible, I personally have seen how many Nigerian professional colleagues react when they find out that I am working in Yola; they seem to feel sorry for me. Co-incidentally, at international conferences I hear similar things from international colleagues about Nigeria. But I explain to them how wrong they are. Evidence shows that Yola is becoming a center of excellence and innovation for Nigeria and beyond–because of AUN. AUN has become a catalyst for the rapid transformation of lives in Adamawa state and this is evident in different projects being championed by the university – the phonics and STELLAR Literacy projects, the Sustainable Resource Enterprises which is empowering rural women and cleaning up the environment, the Adamawa Peace Initiative, the ICT training for over 1,100 vulnerable youths or the equally redemptive Grand Alliance project, which will change the economic landscape of the North East. Yes, against all odds, with the power of an idea, a vision, generosity, and the determination to succeed, the Founder of the American University of Nigeria, H.E. Atiku Abubakar, made it possible. This is a great model for all of us for expanding our horizons and visions. If this can be done in Yola, it can be done all over Nigeria and Africa. Happy birthday to a great man of ideas. — Demirhan is Director of Library, American University of Nigeria (AUN)
Posted on: Mon, 25 Nov 2013 11:06:28 +0000
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