UNIJOS ECHO had a chat with the Dean of Arts, Prof. Iorapuu Tor, and he bore out his thoughts on some pressing issues about the Faculty. The interview was conducted by Joseph Ojedeji and Halimah Yahaya.
You were re-elected as the Dean recently. Why did you seek re-election?
This is a tough question and to be candid when I was elected as the Dean towards the end of 2014, I took over formally in December and that was when we moved here [current Faculty building]. I had a lot of ideas of what a faculty should look like from teaching to the studentship. When we moved into this new environment, one of my ideas was that we should make this place a model for the university system so that people who come from other faculties can come here and when they go back they should wonder whether they are in the same system. I am saying both in terms of staff behaviour, staff work, in terms of students’ relationship, learning and general decency around the environment and attitude towards work so that when you meet students of the Faculty of Arts anywhere, you will be able to distinguish our students from others. These were the kind of ideas I had and above all, I was hoping that we would get a Faculty that is very active in all areas. So generally speaking, what informed my becoming the dean in the first instance was to ensure that we uplift our Faculty beyond the manner and ways things are done within the system. You would recall that before we moved to this environment, the library that has burnt, unfortunately, was more like a marketplace. You couldn’t teach in the class, students were just hanging around everywhere and personally, for a long time, I had stopped going up to teach because I can’t stand noise and it’s one of the things that we hope we are going to promote here, which is a decent environment that when lectures are going on even if students are outside chatting, you don’t get to hear them. We haven’t gotten there yet but we are making progress. I am sure we will get there. So I could not achieve all of these in the last two years because when we moved down here, there was a prolonged ASUU strike and several other strikes and then in addition to the strikes, this place was not properly furnished. The classrooms were not furnished at all and we started on a very bad note as students had to provide plastic chairs to study and I did not find that funny. Of course, I commend the students because it’s part of expressing their citizenship as well as their civic duty to contribute where you can. Rather than raise dust against the environment, you choose to say “this learning environment is for us, so we are not going to wait and if it’s going to take time, why don’t we just go ahead and provide what we can to enable us to proceed because at the end we are the learners and we are the ones that are going to benefit from this faculty”. I commend all the student associations that did that. Now, we are beginning a new year and you can imagine, two years after, the classrooms have still not been totally furnished. It is now that maybe at the end of January, most of the classrooms would have been furnished. In that way, I would have achieved one of the things I said I was going to achieve. So when all of these were not there, I didn’t think it was good enough for me to leave. I must see it to a logical conclusion and I am happy that at least for the classrooms, by the end of this month, 90% of the classrooms would have been furnished. Then, I would have the issue of staff offices and others. These are the things that made me say if I was going to leave, I’m going to create a problem for whosoever was going to take over and since I had started and I know the challenges here and I have made progress in terms of sourcing for funds, in terms of reaching out and lobbying to make sure some things are done, it was only proper that I continue and get them done. I am so very hopeful because the Vice Chancellor has visited the faculty with his management and you can see some of the chairs are already there upstairs. I am happy that I went into one of the classrooms and students are already using it. There is a small place we are putting together for a post-graduate lecture room and at least, postgraduate students will have two classrooms where they can have lectures and then undergraduate students, if they are small in number, can also use that place for lectures. We just have to find a way of managing the little we have.
Since the library complex inferno, the faculty complex is overstretched in terms of student’s capacity. What are the short-term measures you have put in place to make the environment conducive for learning?
Before the library complex was gutted by fire, we were already stretched here and having clashes over lecture halls and all of that. It became worse with the fire incident at the library complex. In view of that, we [the deanery] called an emergency meeting of the HoDs to discuss the issue. We came up with a model as a creative approach to solving the problems which specify certain days of the week for different departments to prevent clashes over lecture halls. Also, in an effort to solve the problem at hand, we identified the classrooms that have chairs and where we can put temporary plastic chairs to increase the number of lecture halls that we have. The model would help reduce the number of times students will be in school, the number of students to occupy a class thereby creating space for other people to utilise the facilities. So what we did was to categorise departments; two, three or four departments in one day based on the number of students in such departments and it started working very well to the extent that some departments have to negotiate with other departments who don’t make use of the entire space allocated to them. However, this has caused confusion and has also created clashes among colleagues, some of which I had to settle. The model which started well was compromised as a result of the clashes in the timetable produced. Initially, the model which started well was thought to have many advantages, one of which is the reduction of the quantum of noise and it was also easier for us to deal with students who love to hang around by asking what their reason for hanging around is. It also made it easy for security men to manage situations at the entrance. It was also easier for us to manage the environment in terms of keeping it clean because there are students who it seems they are naturally unclean. The battle for environmental cleanliness is a battle I’ve been fighting and I think both the staff and students are responding positively. The model has also reduced the number of times a lecturer has to be school and instead of hanging around due to lack of offices, they could utilise their homes and libraries to do some research work and then create days to meet with students. These are the interim measures which we are executing and although we are not there yet, I am sure with the additionally furnished classrooms it will be better.
As a follow-up to that question, are there any plans in the pipeline to ensure that the other complex is finished and put to use before the new session commence?
In terms of finishing, I have received assurances and as a matter of fact, the immediate past Vice chancellor was very optimistic that the complex was going to be finished before his tenure elapses. Unfortunately, with all the assurances, the contractor did not deliver. But again, these are some of the things we need to talk about like, who do we award contracts to? On what basis? Why do we award contracts to people who will not deliver and above all the quality of the structure and I for me, it is getting to a point where students also will begin to participate in what happens around them. These questions are important and if you ask me, I wasn’t consulted but I was told that people were consulted. If I was consulted, I would have told them that a modern lecture environment is built this way. Nevertheless, to answer your question, the Vice Chancellor has assured me that something will be done but how soon I can’t tell. I have been having discussions with the Director of Physical Facilities and she thinks that maybe we should use our contacts to reach out to the contractor and whatever it is, I am sure this place would be completed. It is better if it is completed as it would be in the interest of the university if it is completed.
What is the actual name of the Faculty? Is it the Faculty of Arts or Faculty of Arts and Humanities?
It’s the Faculty of Arts. Where did you get the humanities from? Everything we do here is humanities. If you look at the almanacs of the previous Deans right from 1978, it has been the Faculty of Arts. We are in the humanities, so people want to include that.
When will your policy of staff appraisals by students commence?
Well! It’s already going on because I have talked about student also appraising staff at the last faculty board meeting and staff didn’t come out to resist but I am very serious about it. Students will have to assess staff, not in the case of witch hunting but improving the standards of staff. For instance, if I have been teaching a course for the past 20 years and students have not been assessing me, how would I know if I am improving or not? I need students to tell me how I am doing. That is why I insist my class is a participatory one to know who and who understands the knowledge I am impacting. It should not be a come and dump knowledge into an empty bucket but through this, you would know who understands, who is learning and who is sharing. The reason why we want to introduce it is because it is a global practice for students to assess their lecturers. If students complain of a lecturer’s teaching method, he/she is called to question by the university or college. They in turn [students] try to help you understand them in order to help you improve your methodology. So I think we need to be open-minded about this and normally when you want to introduce a policy, the first thing people do is to resist even when it stands to benefit them. So the question is, are they resisting or it’s an attitude, due to some of the characters exhibited by the students? But you need to understand why certain people behave the way they do and so departments and faculties need to ensure the staff-students assessments. The policy has started if I must tell you, and some people don’t know that it’s going on so as not to draw unnecessary politicisation of a policy that is meant to help the system. There are some lecturers you hardly see but only come around during exams and it might interest you to know that some students call to tell me of such lecturers that come late and are not delivering well but I tell you that such lecturers have been approached and I say “Hey! this is what people are saying about you and you need to do something” but if it gets to a point when I have to take other actions, yes as the Dean, I have to take it. I can tell you, this report is not only for younger colleagues but even for professors and I have drawn the attention of such professors. If you have not entered a class from the beginning of a semester, on what are you going to examine your students? I expect students to have confidence and come to me and they should also trust that I will protect them and that’s for sure, trust me. I have never exposed any student and no lecturer will make you fail if you summon up the courage to inform us of his or her weakness in disposing of their duties.
What efforts are being put in place to ensure the full accreditation of some courses within the Faculty?
Before now, I had set up a committee chaired by Prof. Augustine Enahoro of the Department of Mass Communication to conduct a mock accreditation or study in the Faculty as many of them [committee members] went for accreditation in other universities and they came back with new ideas. So what we are planning to do is to bring together these professors and HoDs together to share their thoughts and experiences in what they learnt from the last accreditation they went for and see how we can apply them. But due to some modalities beyond our control, we haven’t commenced the entire process yet, however, we are working on ensuring that the History Department that was denied accreditation last time gets full accreditation. If there is something I would love to do, it is to make sure that every department in the Faculty of Arts gets full accreditation.
The Department of History and International Studies could not admit students last session due to this accreditation problem. What has been done to avoid a recurrence of such?
The information I have is that the Academic Office has made an appeal to the Vice Chancellor and he has committed their appeal to the National Universities Commission (NUC), and admission has been done this year in that department and they would have intake into 100 level next session.
As a father of the Faculty, what counsel do you have for the students and lecturers?
I am telling you, the deanship must start with from what God expect of us. One, my counsel is that we are all here for a purpose and in other to achieve the purpose, you all applied to come and study so that you can be better citizens to serve the country because knowledge is all about service and any knowledge that you acquire that does not lead you to serve humanity means you haven’t learnt anything. Hence, you all must abide by the specified rules and regulations. As a follow-up to that, you find out that due to the last strike, the students decided to give themselves the responsibility to man the security at the gate so as to be sure of those who come into the Faculty. That is what civic duty and citizenship call for. You all need to be proactive. The 300 level students of Theater and Film Arts organised themselves and rearranged the stones at the parking lot as a form of civic duty so that people can park decently. So if students can do such, more is expected from the lecturers. Collaboration, this is what I want the students to do and to take responsibility without waiting for anybody to tell them and that is what learning is all about. There are certain things you acquire in class and there are some you acquire from your relationship with people. My desire for the Faculty of Arts is that we should be a Faculty where we are there for everyone, protecting our students and supporting its staff. That is the kind of Faculty I look forward to, a faculty where religion, ethnicity, tribe or whatsoever does not hold sway but the only thing that holds sway is that you are a human being. I am a human being and we are all human beings. We recognise first our common identity as human beings and our religion, our tribe or whatsoever will not divide us and we can only use it to strengthen what we are doing and that is why we are in the arts. I look forward to a Faculty that is top in the entire campus and we are already working on how to beautify the entire environment with flowers. The beautification of the environment will evoke a sense of decency in the students to the effect that even a sweet wrap will not be dropped on the floor without the culprit being disturbed by his or her conscience and common sense till they drop it in the right place. For lecturers, they should reflect on their commitments as it is important.
Edited by JM
Photo by Dabo Asta Aysha
