CHSS Principal's Orientation Speech to New Students

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On behalf of the Vice-Chancellor and the entire University of Nairobi community, I welcome you warmly to the University, and especially to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

The University of Nairobi is organized into six Colleges, namely:

The College of Agriculture and Veterinary Sciences located at Upper Kabete Campus;
The College of Architecture and Engineering located at the Main Campus and on State House Road;
The College of Biological and Physical Sciences located at Chiromo Campus on Waiyaki Way;
The College of Health Sciences located at Kenyatta National Hospital and in Chiromo Campus;
The College of Education and External Studies located at Kikuyu and the Kenya Science Campus; and last, the biggest of all;
The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is spread over six (6) areas:

Main Campus
Museum Hill
Parklands Campus
Lower Kabete Campus
Kisumu Campus
Mombasa Campus

The University of Nairobi has one constituent college, namely,

Koitalel arap Samoei University College in Nandi County.

CHSS, as is fondly referred to, is the largest of the six colleges of the University of Nairobi. Structurally, it is composed of one faculty, four schools, four institutes and three Centres. These are:

Faculty of Arts with 12 academic departments offering arts related programmes and is located at the Main Campus.

These departments are:

Literature
Sub-Department of French
Linguistics and Languages
History and Archaeology
Geography and Environmental Studies
Philosophy and Religious Studies
Sociology and Social Work
Psychology
Kiswahili
Political Science and Public Administration
Communication Skills and Studies
Library and Information Science

The School of Law is located at Parklands, Kisumu, and Mombasa Campuses and comprises the following departments:

Public Law,
Private Law, and
Commercial Law.

The School of Business with three departments is located at Lower Kabete, Mombasa and Kisumu Campuses. The departments therein are;

Business Administration,
Finance and Accounting, and
Management Science.

The School of Journalism and Mass Communication which is the regional leader in print and electronic journalism is located at the Main Campus.
The School of Economics is located at the Main Campus, Mahatma Gandhi Wing Building. It is charged with teaching and research in the field of Economics.

The College also has four institutes and three Centres.

These are:

Institute of Anthropology, Gender and African Studies (IAGAS) located at the Museum Hill.
Institute for Development Studies (IDS) located on 5th Floor of Gandhi Wing.
Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (IDIS) located at 8.4.4. Building.
Population Studies and Research Institute located at Hyslop Building, Main Campus.
The Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy (CASELAP) located at the Parklands Campus.
African Women Studies Centre located at the Kenya Science and Main Campuses.
The Centre for Translation and Interpretation located at the Central Catering Unit (CCU), Main Campus.

The College is also home to the Confucius Institute and the Korean Centre, which are joint ventures between the Government of Kenya, the People’s Republic of China and the Korea Republic. The Confucius Institute offers courses in Chinese language and culture to interested students and staff and the College has benefited greatly through scholarships granted to our students to study in China.

For academic programmes purposes, they are both housed in the Department of Linguistics and Languages, Faculty of Arts.

You are joining a College with the highest number of students in the entire University with over 30,000 out of the total university student population of 70,000 representing 57% of the total number of students in the University. In the current admission, the University has admitted 2390 students to this College.

The University has various modes of delivery of its programmes, ranging from face to face to E-learning. You are, however, admitted for the regular programme, commonly referred to as Module I, unless you desire to transfer to the fee paying (self-sponsored) module II and III programmes.

For all purposes, these programmes, be they government or self sponsored, are similar both in content and quality. The only difference is that they are taught at different times, the fees is different, and of course, there are more senior citizen students in the module II classes than in the regular classes. Where space allows, the day classes for Module II and Regular are integrated.

To provide the much needed quality service to our students, the College has a strong team of 523 academic members of staff and 276 members of administrative and support staff. Among them is a critical mass of over 103 professors. I would like to assure you that there are structures to make your life as a student a memorable experience. Please make use of them!

Vision

The vision of the University of Nairobi is to be “A world-class University committed to scholarly excellence.”

This vision is cascaded to the College, whose vision is ‘’A leading College that promotes excellence in teaching, training, research and consultancy.’’

Mission

The mission of the University which, inter alia, is the mission of the college is to provide quality University education and Training and to embody the aspirations of the Kenyan People and the Global community through Creation, Preservation, Integration, Transmission and Utilization of Knowledge.

In pursuing this mission, the College, through the relevant organs, namely the College Management Board and the College Academic Board, has been focusing on the following areas of development:

The development of ICT
A conducive environment in the classrooms and computer laboratories.
Increased library materials and diversification of learning resources.
The development of sports infrastructure.
Expansion of educational opportunities through the opening of satellite campuses, e.g. Kisumu and Mombasa.
Service delivery through establishment of a College Huduma Centre

The College will continue to improve these facilities to ensure we achieve high standards in line with the stated vision of the University of being a World Class University. According to the webometrics ranking system, our University is currently ranked at position one (1) in the country, top ten (10) in Africa and 987 of the universities ranked worldwide.

To provide increased higher education access to Kenyans, the College has continued to expand its academic programmes. The College has satellite campuses in Mombasa and Kisumu. It has also partnered with Kenya Utalii College, to offer two degree programmes, B.A in Tourism and Travel and B.A in Hospitality Management.

As the University celebrates its over 160,000 alumni since inception, the College is proud to be part of this achievement. Many of our graduates hold key jobs in the public and private sectors of our economy, and even beyond. You are, therefore, being prepared for the same!

It is my belief and prayer that in four years’ time, you will enlarge the list of our College astute alumni. To achieve this goal, however, you must take a number of positive actions. A few of these include:

Conducting yourselves responsibly, with maturity and integrity, personal discipline and morality, refraining from acts of indiscipline, thuggery, hooliganism, disorderly behavior and violence.
You should also desist from misuse, malicious or willful damage of University property and further avoid disturbing, assaulting or injuring fellow students, staff and members of the public. Commission of any acts of indiscipline will lead not only to disciplinary action by the University but also in accordance the laws of the Republic of Kenya.
You need to work hard and follow the guidance of your lecturers. You will soon realize that there are no assemblies or bells to wake you up and yet you must attend to all academic requirements!
Develop a culture of interacting with your lecturers and fellow students to share knowledge and skills.

To fully achieve your academic and life-long goals, you must efficiently manage your resources which include money, material possessions, time, and most important of all, yourself.

Your parents, guardians and the Kenyan society at large, have invested a lot in you. It is, therefore, always a sad affair to see many young people waste away because of drugs, alcohol and AIDS! You must, therefore, take care before it is too late.

Nothing, and I repeat nothing, should come between you and all that you have worked this hard for i.e. getting good grades and finally, graduating on schedule.

Seek guidance from your lecturers and office of the Dean of Students whenever you find challenging situations in your campus life.

Whenever your plans do not work out as expected, find out what is wrong, correct it and move forward with a new set of plans for accomplishing your ultimate goals.
If you give up before your goals are reached, you are a quitter; and remember, quitters never win and winners never quit!
Unfortunately, life is a complex puzzle because success today does not guarantee success tomorrow. Remember that from those to whom much has been given, more is expected in return. So if you are not careful, your big success in KCSE may turn out to be a failure at the University.

Therefore, I would like you:

To learn from the mistakes of others for you cannot possibly live long enough to make all those mistakes yourself;
To live with discipline, for those who live without discipline die without honour; and
To remember that success comes from hard work and discipline and not luck.
Finally, I wish you a fruitful four years’ stay in the University with the hope that the four important dimensions of your life will be shaped for a productive working life, namely, Intellectual, social, physical and spiritual development.