A senior lecturer in the University of Jos, Dr Christy Best has identified passion for one’s career as a major factor for success in any field of human endeavour.
She stated this while sharing her career experience as a guest speaker at the gathering of women academics from all over Africa at the HERS South Africa 2009.
Dr Best who is the Head, Mass Communication Department, University of Jos, recounted how her passion for the media and a strong commitment to developing herself in her chosen career has helped her to break new grounds and excel in the face of all odds.
She said she became interested in the media because of its power to control and influence people, which she wanted to harness to impact knowledge and educate others.
She narrated how she started her career at a Jos Christian radio station called Muryar Bishara (Radio Voice of the Gospel), where she worked as an assistant producer in charge of production and presentation of children’s programmes.
According to her, even when she had to study English Literature at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, her love for the media didn’t die.
Best later studied Journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the United States, and on returning to Nigeria, worked with a newspaper where she edited a popular woman’s column.
However, she had to switch to the academia because of poor working conditions, newsroom politics and the pressures of motherhood.
Best, who is widely published and travelled, was appointed the pioneer head of Mass Communication Department when it was created in 2008.
She added that she is working with the staff of the department “to lay a solid foundation based on integrity, hard work and the pursuit of excellence”. Dr Best cited an example of an honours society whose membership is open students with at least a CGPA of 3.5 to promote academic excellence and encourage students to be change agents in society.
She concluded by telling the women that she is enjoying her job because it enables her to influence the younger generation, and noted that she teaches and writes “to inspire students and media users to dream more, to learn more, do more and become more”.
Best and Josephine Otubu, Deputy Director of Audit of the institution were among other women from Botswana, Uganda, Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria who were sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York to attend the programme.
HERS-SA is an independent non-profit organization registered in South Africa modelled after HERS Mid-America, which has been running professional activities for women in higher education in the United States for over 30 years. HERS-SA has brought over 800 women in higher education from across Africa to South Africa for its annual programmes.
Some of the objectives of the organization include developing and offering accessible development programmes for women in higher education, empowering women to take leadership positions in higher institutions as well as addressing gender inequality in higher institutions’ workforce.
By Matthew Adeiza
