During the week, the Vice-Chancellor of Caleb University, Prof. Nosa Owens-Ibie, urged the staff to take the institution to greater heights in the new academic session.

He charged the staff to do their best and exhibit a good attitude to help the university achieve its lofty goals in the new session.

Prof. Owens–Ibie made the call at a two-day Colloquium with the theme: “Driving Excellence for Global Relevance,” held at the institution’s Multipurpose Hall in Imota, Lagos.

 The Colloquium was put together by the university management to prepare the staff ahead of the commencement of the 2024/25 Academic Session.

The two Guest Speakers at the Colloquium were the Global Engagement Officer with Lancaster University, the United Kingdom, Rachel Harvey, and the former Executive Secretary of the National University Commission (NUC), Prof. Peter Okebukola.  

Other speakers at the event were the university’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Academics, Prof. Sunday Adewale, the institution’s Registrar, Mr. Mayokun Olumeru, the Bursar, Mr. Adesina Abubakre and the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, Innovation, Strategy and Administration (RISA), Prof. Olalekan Asikhia.

In his remark, the Vice-Chancellor stressed the importance of a good attitude in the workplace.

“A positive attitude will help you learn. Irrespective of your level of education, a bad attitude will diminish you. Don’t use your position as a lecturer or administrative staff to confer undue advantage on yourself by intimidating or extorting the students.

“You must be determined not to be associated with the work of darkness. Make yourself available for signs and wonders,” he counseled the staff at the well-attended colloquium.

Harvey, who spoke on Global Ranking Metrics, explained how institutions are rated in relation to each other.

She also emphasized the importance of ranking to the university’s reputation.

Harvey said: “Rankings are used to measure the quality of education, faculty, and research opportunities available at a university. Evidence has shown that higher-ranked universities often offer more resources, better facilities, and a stronger academic community.”

Okebukola on his part charged Caleb University to target the top three positions in Nigeria and the top 10 in Africa.

He encouraged the staff to push the university to the top of the ladder through collaborative research and other innovative actions.

The former NUC chief congratulated the university over the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed recently with the Washington State University in the United States.

In his presentation, the university Registrar challenged the workers to position themselves for greater impact in the university.

“To be globally excellent, we must be globally relevant. We have to look at a number of things, I mean the way we do things before we would talk about achieving global excellence.

“For example, if our admission process targets people within our locality, it means we are not ready to compete at the highest level. It simply shows that we are not globally relevant,” Olumeru chorused.

The DVC RISA chipped in with his contributions on “Attitudes and Values Needed to Drive Excellence.”

He also encouraged the staff to use the colloquium to bring excellence to the university.

Prof. Asikhia harped on positive attitudes and values in the institution.

“Show me a man who lacks attitude and I will show you a man whose life is not premised on good value,” he stated.

Meanwhile, all the academic programmes on offer at the university have full accreditation.