The American University of Nigeria (AUN) has said students who returned from Ukrainian universities following the outbreak of war with Russia are among the newly matriculated students of the varsity’s ‘Fall’ 2022 semester.
The university in a statement signed by its Executive Director, Marketing and Communications, Daniel Okereke, also said Nigerian students in the Diaspora, and students from Burundi, Togo, Cameroon and Nigeria took the traditional Community Pledge.
The statement said the ceremony marked the formal beginning of AUN’s 34th uninterrupted semester, as the new students pledged to uphold the institution’s core values of excellence, integrity and service to the community.
Welcoming the new students and their parents, the Interim President of AUN, Professor Attahir Yusuf, identified diversity management as one of the university’s most vital assets.
“At the American University of Nigeria, we celebrate our diversity. We encourage our students to appreciate diversity, to be inclusive in orientation, to promote diversity by respecting individuality. We expect people to have different opinion and beliefs and we accommodate all of these as a close-knitted learning community guided by certain principles,” he said.
The President encouraged the new students to take advantage of the university’s resources for academic and emotional support.
Professor Attahir advised them to exercise their freedom as responsible undergraduates and reiterated the American University of Nigeria’s zero tolerance for sexual harassment, bullying, cultism, hard drugs, academic cheating, and other social vices.
The Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, Dr. Patrick Fay, stressed the AUN advantage, which includes flexibility to choose and change programmes.
He said: “This small class size encourages closer interaction between students and professors, e-library resources, academic support units to help struggling students, and the American liberal arts curriculum, which requires students to take courses outside their core discipline. ”
A former Irish Ambassador to Nigeria who also chairs the AUN Committee of Deans, Dr. Fay advised the new students to enrich their academic experience by engaging in extra-curricular activities, including leadership training and service learning