Keeping CIU Accountable to Our Vision

By Sean Clarke

Recently I had the chance to share the CIU Mission and Vision with some friends of mine who are also invested in some way with CIU either personally, emotionally and for some financially. I was asking this group to keep us accountable to that vision, because I have learned that in times of great pressure it can be tempting to justify a compromise of vision and mission. Yet at CIU we pride ourselves on being a values based university, this is in our mission and vision statement, and it’s in our DNA. I asked these friends to ensure that this always remains the same, in good times or bad.

Our vision statement says we are a values-based university that inspires leadership, critical thinking, innovation, and outstanding academic training that transforms communities. Our tag line consists of 3 key words - Lead, Innovate, Transform.

I find these to be 3 powerful, and also very challenging words, because they ask us to push outside of our comfort zones, and also represent the tools by which we meet the needs and help to shape our communities and our country for the better. While meeting these friends on Zoom we looked briefly at the journey CIU has taken since inception. I was able to share with them an image I took of our building that morning. Many of them are based in the UK and have been unable to travel to Uganda since the pandemic began. Perhaps some people on visiting the new CIU building who know nothing of our history might fail to be impressed with our mostly, but not yet finished, grey concrete building. But anyone who feels this way has failed to appreciate what this has taken to achieve. My friends on this zoom call were amazed. One of them had personally raised the funds to offer CIU an interest free loan, which is the reason we are able to finish the 4 floor building. These friends of CIU were amazed that in the year of the pandemic, where we suffered forced closure, had to innovate online learning, had to adapt to unprecedented conditions, and suffered numerous tragedies, we had managed not just to survive, but to forge ahead in our roadmap, and move into a new home, paving the way to charter. In describing our journey I find it interesting that CIU started as a nursing school specifically to address the need for better quality nurses, since Dr Clarke was operating medical businesses, and felt that need was not being adequately addressed. And so the Nursing school, which evolved into a University, was born. In fact it was Rose, before she became Dr Rose, who would lead the innovation that would transform the teaching of nursing and health sciences more widely in Uganda. Now - re read the previous sentence, do any key words jump out at you? There in the very inception, the origin story of CIU, are the key concepts of leadership, innovation and transformation of our community and our country.

The university has developed and changed so much since then. People have come and gone, leadership has changed, we have weathered some storms and are weathering more at this time. Many aspects of CIU might be unrecognisable to nurses from the first cohort of students, we have a different home (our very own campus), even the name is now different. But I do believe we are still making decisions based on our values, and that we as an institution, and each and every student that graduates from CIU, are striving to Lead, innovate and Transform.