Abstract
The university years present the culmination of the formative years in the life of a student and an important time to consolidate the years of study while developing career and life aspirations of any youth. However, ignorance and apathy characterize the university life of many a student more than the ideal desire for an intellectual experience that would be expected. Much of this apathy and ignorance can be attributed to a failure to help the students appreciate what the university ought to be and what they can gain from it in their time there. As definitive institutions of higher learning, universities ought to play a big part in shaping the next generation of leaders.
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Notes
See for example the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) initiative, a comprehensive program for presidents and official representatives of leading business schools and academic institutions designed to inspire and champion responsible management education, research and thought leadership globally directed at management schools.
See Article 1 (1) Basic Law of Germany (proposed by the Herrenchiemsee Conference, 1948): The state exists for the sake of the human being, not the human being for the sake of the state. Quoted in Dawn Oliver & Jorg Fedtke, eds Human rights & the private sphere, a comparative study (2007).
See Protagoras, a dialog written by Plato 380 B.C.E where Socrates asks his companion Hippocrates ‘if you study with this fellow, what will he make of you? In carrying out the dialog, Socrates meant to help Hippocrates to think about why he went to Protagoras, a sophist, to study, and what such study would make him. If Protagoras was a sophist, Hippocrates could reasonably only expect to be made a sophist, of which he was ashamed, and that he did not know what a sophist was and neither whether that which he was committing himself to was good or evil. Similarly, students who go to an institution must be guided by the consideration of what values the institution espouses as that is what they can reasonably expect to gain by studying there.
The mission and philosophy of Strathmore, stated in the Strathmore University Charter Legal Notice No. 86 Published on 23 June, 2008:
The mission of Strathmore University is the advancement of education through teaching, scholarship and service to society by inter alia providing an all-round quality education in an atmosphere of freedom and responsibility; creating a culture of continuous improvement; fostering high moral standards; and developing a spirit of service and respect for others.
The educational philosophy of the University is as follows:
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(a)
A university must strive to serve society through the provision of quality academic and professional training, as well as human and moral training.
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(b)
A university should provide the most suitable means to improve the moral, social and economic conditions of the person and of society as a whole.
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(a)
A lecturer had taught intricacies of health care system for a whole semester and was frustrated that students offered a simplistic explanation of rising costs, attributing it to patients demanding too many tests.
For a useful guide for such a program see How to Implement a Peer Mentoring Program: a User’s Guide available at
http://www.secretariat.unsw.edu.au/acboard/approved_policy/peer_mentoring_program_guide.pdf (accessed on 21 February 2011).
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Osiemo, L.B. Developing Responsible Leaders: The University at the Service of the Person. J Bus Ethics 108, 131–143 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1087-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1087-3