A university where students define their social mission

The last minutes of my visit are trickling by as I turn to Theodora, my student guide, and ask, “What’s your mission?” We are standing on the grounds of the African Leadership University (ALU) campus in Kigali Innovation City in Rwanda. My question sounds everyday, casual, here. It is one of the few places I’ve been where having a personal mission feels as natural as being human. Don’t you have one?

“I want to empower women through digital content creation and education,” Theodora responds without missing a beat. “Specifically, to make female menstrual health resources more accessible,” she elaborates. I nod.

We arrived on campus three days ago, covered in dust and sapped of energy by overnight travel. My friend was walking next to me with a serene, if somewhat stoical, expression. She is not an innovative university aficionado, like I am – she is just adventurous. “This is the future of higher education,” I said to put some bounce back in our step and waited for the ping of embarrassment that arrives after saying something far-fetched or naïve. It did not come, though. I felt secure in my statement.

You might already know ALU’s story. It has smoothened, like a river rock polished by pitches to investors, prospective students and their families, as well as TED and TEDx talks, interviews and mission statement articles. The narrative is so compelling, it invites disbelief. It is still true.

Here is the short version for you: about 10 years ago, on a day like any other, Fred Swaniker, a serial entrepreneur with a personal history that somehow spans several African countries and Silicon Valley, and his team realised it was a high time to start a university.

They had already had a successful project in secondary education, the African Leadership Academy, but that was not enough. And, of course, whenever one needs to transition from more than enough to more than anyone can handle, an innovative university is born.

The vision sounded piece-of-cake simple: graduating people who would have what it takes to lead the African continent into the future. The university would be pan-African, with 25 sites across the continent. It would be entrepreneurial and experiential, offering hands-on learning in the field, with Africa itself as a curriculum.

It would be affordable, experimenting with formats and leveraging technology for sustainability. And it would be a leadership, not an academic, institution. The difference? Students and graduates would be compelled and highly capable of leading transformative change – and unable not to.

Ten years on

Ten years later, ALU is still searching for its form, like a TV series concept in the furnaces of a writing room. The initial plan to have 25 campuses gradually transformed into a model with two campuses and several learning hubs: in Nairobi, Lagos, Kigali and Addis Ababa. Opening two campuses – one in Mauritius and one in Rwanda – was difficult enough, given complex local legislation. Twenty-three more would be too taxing for a young institution.

Recently, even that has shifted, slid into history. The learning hubs are being viewed increasingly as spaces for both ALX Africa (an online continuing education sister project) and sites for Signature Immersive Experiences (SIEs). SIEs are ALU’s original take on academic mobility, rooted in the idea that learning can and should be global and immersive at the same time. Students travel from site to site, interacting with local entrepreneurs, artists and industry experts.

The search is not without its issues. The governance model started as recognisably start-up with its flat hierarchies, Slack (messaging app) and a CEO instead of a president – not problematic in itself, but vibrating at different frequencies compared with the university’s localities.

Although there have been changes to make the community more diverse, there is still a lingering feeling that professionals with backgrounds in American higher education are over-represented, likely a remnant of the first couple of years.

Challenges on the road to innovation

It is difficult to be innovative in places where regulations have evolved to be tight to enforce minimum quality standards. It is even more difficult if you are a transnational university, a tower with doors in many places. ALU must align not only with local regulators in Rwanda and Mauritius, but also with the East African Community and national councils to make sure their diplomas are accepted and recognised.

The Rwandan campus seems smaller with each incoming cohort. The staff eye the surrounding area, bracing themselves for expansion.

The Mauritius campus is struggling to attract Mauritians, who are uncertain they should view their island country as a part of Africa at all and attend the African Leadership College of Higher Education (ALU’s name in Mauritius). The newly obtained accreditation from the Mauritian Higher Education Commission will help establish the reputational foothold, but it will still take a moment to captivate the local imagination.

Then there is funding. Most students from the first cohorts were on full scholarships provided by ALU’s corporate partners. Shifting away from philanthropy to tuition fees as a source of income is a challenge even with new continuing education options ALU is introducing, especially considering that financial aid for a fair share of students will always be a necessity.

Finally, the largest problem is change itself. While most Western universities have too little of it, ALU has too much. During the weekend, I drove to one of Rwanda’s volcanoes. The possibility of an accident is always right around the next twist on a serpentine road. It is similar for young institutions. They turn, searching for their shape, tinkering with the engine as they go, dropping details from the initial design, ever in danger of going too far or not far enough.

Shape-shifting is also taxing on people. How do you hire for an institution that is constantly changing? An obvious answer would be to select for comfort with change. But those who are born for storms dislike the quiet. And if you hire for stability, how do you save your employees from burnout when they adjust to a new model that one time that turns out to be one too many?

And yet, it works.

Mission-driven

A week later, I am having brunch with a friend, a lawyer. I talk and talk about ALU, unable to stop. How do you train a leader? They must be ethical to know how their actions affect others. They must have an entrepreneurial mindset and a can-do spirit. It is good if they know what they are doing, so vision would not hurt (hence African case studies in all courses, I explain).

But what else, I ask? He gives this a thought and finally responds: “Accountability”. I like the answer’s judicial, solemn tone. Because this is what a mission is. Accountability for what you do – and what you do not do. For action and for inaction. But how do you teach that?

Throughout the course of three years, an ALU student must define and clarify their mission. There are foundational courses and micro courses. There is faculty support and support from very accessible learning coaches. There are also interviews, events, workshops, talks to attend, group projects, internships, field studies and projects with organisations, and shadowing professionals.

Can-do spirit is supported by entrepreneurship education training. This starts with the Entrepreneurship Lab, which helps with identifying the initial venture idea, and continues with the Student Venture Programme and smaller initiatives.

ALU hosts around two dozen entrepreneurship events per year. A lot of student projects flourish into fully fledged business companies in areas ranging from telehealth to agriculture. In 2018, Times Higher Education called ALU the “Harvard of Africa”. The ‘Babson of Africa’ or ‘Stanford of Africa’ might be more apt.

Missions are typically fully formulated by the end of the second or third trimester, for a student to proceed to in-depth work in year two. They are future-bound, connected not to the existing body of knowledge (like majors), but to the visions of how things must be.

The formulation is linked to the seven Grand Challenges, such as urbanisation, education or healthcare, and seven Grand Opportunities like natural resources, tourism or women’s empowerment. In other words, ALU has figured out how to make the grand topics tangible.

Usually, a student would have a combination of a grand challenge and a grand opportunity. For example, Sipho Chakhala, whose mission is supporting a decentralised government system via software solutions, cited governance for a challenge, and arts, culture and design for an opportunity.

Incidentally, his mission evolved from “helping African governments with bureaucracy” prior to joining ALU to “creating a decentralised application that puts certain government bureaucratic processes in the citizen’s hands, thus lessening the strain on government resources” after the first year.

Francesca Ekondaho has a similar mission: empowering young Africans to lead transformative change, but through an AI-powered voting system that would reduce human error. Morounfoluwa Adeduro is working towards urban sustainability in Lagos.

“So what do you think?” I asked, as we drove away from campus on that first day. We had just had a meeting with the administration, followed by a meeting with student writers. My friend, ever an authority sceptic, had listened politely to staff and stayed questioning. The students convinced her, not because they talked about missions, but because they truly had it: a mission in life.

Alumni career tracking shows that 80% of graduates carry on their missions through organisations they end up working for or creating. The response bias might be at work: if you respond to an alumni survey at all, you probably have something relevant to say. But I’d say even 8% would make a difference.

Too important to fail

We could start challenging ALU’s concept. Innovation is fragile. It invites a question: “Why would it work?” instead of “Why would it not?” But ALU simply has to. In his book, Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Resistance to change in higher education, Brian Rosenberg, a member of ALU Foundational Council, writes: “ALU might not be too big to fail, but it is I think too important to fail.” I agree.

ALU campus is full of murals. The one you see when you enter the grounds traces the history of civilisation, interwoven with the history of universities, including the ancient ones. The progression connects schools like the University of Timbuktu and ALU. ALU is one of the possible future models, both an actual, flesh-and-blood-and-graduates institution and an idea. Until an idea takes hold, it must not fail.

If ALU was a TV series, I would bet on it becoming a hit. There was determination in the air on campus: joyful in some people, grim in others, but universally present – the overall ‘Let’s make it work’ refrain. Restless excellence is, after all, one of ALU’s values. Taken seriously, as it is, it can lead you as high as you want to go. Maybe it can lead the entire continent.

I did not say it then, but as I drove away, I felt a steady beat of hope. If ALU can instil the mindset that a mission-driven life is preferable, maybe your university can, too? Maybe all of them can? What do you think?

Dara Melnyk is a strategy consultant and a writer, specialising in university transformation and innovative higher education. This is her regular column. If you have ideas about universities that should be explored, please contact Dara at dara.melnyk.personal@gmail.com.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the authors only and not their employer and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.