Governance: Overview

The Virtual University of Uganda is a Private-Not-For-Profit institution operating under the stewardship of its Board of Trustees. The University Council is the supreme authority in the university and is composed of a diverse group of experienced professionals and academics who have the best interests of the university at heart. The Senate is the university authority charged with overseeing the academic work of the university, including teaching and learning. The Senate is chaired by the Vice-Chancellor. The Academic Board is the body which governs all students' academic work, regulates examinations, and recommends to Senate on all issues of admissions, examinations, and graduation. The Academic Board is presided over by the Director of Programmes (Dean).

Chancellor

Lady Justice Flavia Senoga Anglin, formerly Chief Registrar of the High Court, is a judge of the High Court based at Jinja, Uganda. To watch a video of the installation of Hon. Lady Justice Flavia Senoga Anglin, click here.

Chairman of Council

Mathematician Professor Patrick James Mangheni, was the CEO of the Research and Education Network for Uganda, and previously was Dean of Research and Postgraduate Studies at Uganda Christian University. His Vice Chair is Miss Gertrude Kayaga Mulindwa, Director of the National Library of Uganda.

Vice Chancellor

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Deirdre Carabine, is an Irish-born philosopher who studied at the Queen's University of Belfast and University College Dublin, gaining a PhD in philosophy from the former and a PhD in Classics from the latter. She was one of the first post-doctoral “Newman” Scholars at UCD and taught both there and at Queen's from the mid 1980s to the early 1990s. She relocated to Uganda in 1993 to teach at the newly-founded Uganda Martyrs University. Having been Director of the Institute of Ethics and Development Studies and the newly-created School of Postgraduate Studies, she then became Deputy Vice-Chancellor. She moved to Kampala in 2006 to become the pioneer Vice-Chancellor at International Health Sciences University.

Having taught in Uganda for twenty years, Prof. Dee's teaching specializations are international development, gender issues, ethics and integrity, and environment issues. She has, over the years, supervised more than 45 BA dissertations, 27 Master's dissertations, and 5 PhD theses. Her current areas of administrative expertise include curriculum development, educational administration, and the use of ICTs in the delivery of higher education. Prof. Carabine speaks English, French, German, and Irish.

Strategic Advisor Finance and Administration

Professor Michel Lejeune, Strategic Advisor Finance and Administration has lived and worked in Uganda for more than 40 years. Prof. Lejeune, as one of the original promoters of VUU is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Previously he was founding Vice-Chancellor of Uganda Martyrs University, where he managed to transform a dilapidated Teacher Training College at Nkozi into one of the best privately-run universities in Uganda today.

Previously he taught at various Ugandan institutions, including Makerere University, where in 1979 he set up an Institute of Medical Ethics and Law, which has now, unfortunately, disappeared from the academic radar. Prof. Lejeune returned to Europe in 1982 and taught at Dundee University, Louvain-la Neuve University, and Fribourg University in Switzerland before returning to Uganda in 1993 to set up UMU.

In 2006 he became Deputy Executive Director of the National Council for Higher Education in Uganda, where he was responsible for Quality Assurance in Uganda's Universities. He retired from the NCHE at the end of 2010 and was responsible for sourcing the seed capital to start VUU. Prof. Lejeune speaks French, English, German, Italian, Runyankore, and some Luganda.

Professor, ICT and eLearning

Professor Victor van Reijswoud is Professor of ICT and eLearning at VUU. He is an all-round programme and project manager with a strong emphasis on project formulation, new projects and organizational/business development with more than 20 years of work experience in the Netherlands, Uganda, Burundi, Papua New Guinea, Bolivia, Ghana, Tanzania and Malawi.

Prof. van Reijswoud set up the IT architecture at VUU and his skills include new project formulation, business development as well as management of complex programmes at country level. In addition to strong project development skills, he has proven academic-level reporting and research skills as shown in more than 60 international publications and professorships at several universities. Equipped with a Master's degree in Health Sciences and a PhD in Information Systems, Prof. van Reijswoud speaks English, German, Dutch and French.

Previously he worked at Divine Word University – Papua New Guinea (2008 – 2010), Université Lumière - Bujumbura, Burundi (2007), IICD/East African Center for Open Source Software (EACOSS) – Uganda (2004 – 2008), Uganda Martyrs University – Uganda (2002 – 2007), Ordina/Devote – Netherlands (1999 – 2002), Essential Action Engineers – Netherlands (1996 – 1999), and Delft University of Technology – Netherlands (1993 – 1999).

Chair of the Academic Board and Programme Leader (Public Health)

Dr Ashis Brahma from The Netherlands is Chair of the VUU Academic Board and Programme Leader for the Public Health programme. He is a physician and tropical medicine doctor who studied in Holland at undergraduate level and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at postgraduate level. As a founding member of Mobile Monday, he has given speeches and lectures all over the world on health issues, and has worked in Holland, India, Kathmandu, Burundi, Sudan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Chad, and the US in various teaching, medical, and public health capacities.

Dr Brahma speaks English, Dutch, French, German, Bengali, Arabic, and Spanish, and his primary teaching interests include community health, conflict and health, safe motherhood and child health, primary healthcare, disease prevention and control, and m-health.