Photo and Story By Jimmy Siyasa
In mid-2021, Uganda Christian University (UCU) underwent a change of guard in many faculties. Vincent Kisenyi was one of those changes. Effective in May, he is the university’s new dean of the UCU School of Business.
“I thank God,” he said. “It is a sign of confidence that I can still contribute to the university.”
The position is familiar ground for Kisenyi. The 49-year-old administrator held a similar position from 2010 to 2014, but at the time, it was the Faculty of Business and Administration. Now, it is the School of Business.
Before that, Kisenyi had been the faculty’s Associate Dean from 2006 to 2009.
Flexible and visionary. That is how one of the administrators in the School of Business described Kisenyi. Martin Kabanda, the head of management and entrepreneurship at the School of Business at UCU, said Kisenyi has incredible human-relations skills.
“He knows how to lead the team, without bruises, towards the school’s goals and objectives,” Kabanda says.
Kisenyi considers his appointment a gesture of confidence in him as the “messiah” to save the School of Business from impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic. He is cognizant of the fact that many staff, students and sponsors have been affected by Covid physically, economically and academically.
“Because of the pandemic, many staff are anxious, have been either sick or fear to contract the virus; others are afraid of losing their jobs,” he said. Kisenyi has, therefore, been working, together, with his team of heads of departments to help staff who have been affected and infected by Covid.
Some of the programs he recently instituted at the School of Business include counseling for staff, as well as lunch-hour prayer meetings.
“We have seen God working wonders here at the faculty because of the intense prayer meetings we hold,” Kisenyi testifies.
To ensure the faculty effectively manages Online Distance Learning (ODeL), Kisenyi, through the eLearning department, organized a refresher training for his staff as a way of re-tooling them to prepare for digital lectures. The students, too, were not left out. The school organized a virtual orientation for new students, to equip them with knowledge on how to study online.
Kisenyi says the School of Business will soon embark on community outreaches, especially within Mukono. These will be in the form of workshops, to share business skills with people operating businesses within the town.
“As a School of Business, we want to have more impact on our community, more than ever before, he says.
He also intends to work with business owners in Mukono, so that his students get placements in supermarkets and grocery shops as they learn business skills.
When Kisenyi joined UCU in 2000, he was already a refined product, having cut his professional teeth at Kyambogo University, (1997-1999) and Uganda Martyrs University (1997-1999). From 2004 to 2005, he also lectured at Bugema Adventist University.
Under his academic belt is a Master’s in Accountancy and Finance from the University of Dundee, Scotland (1997), a certificate of doing business in Europe from Hanze University of Applied Science, Groningen Netherlands (2016), a Bachelor of Business Administration and Management, acquired in 1996, at the Uganda Martyrs University.
During his free time, Kisenyi engages in sports. In fact, he is a former sports tutor at UCU. He is also the current vice president of both the Africa Woodball Association and the National University Sports Federation of Uganda.
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