Key points:
- The Rev. Peter Mageto will continue to lead the pan-African institution for the next five years.
- The fall board meeting celebrated a second grant from Global Ministries that will help resuscitate the Africa University farm.
- Eight additional staff houses also are nearing completion.
The Rev. Peter Mageto was reelected to lead Africa University at the close of the fall meeting of the university’s board of directors.
Mageto, a Kenyan national, received a unanimous vote to head the school for the next five years. He is the first expatriate to lead the pan-African institution since it was established in 1992.
“I see it as an honor that they have bestowed on me once again, and I see it as an opportunity to continue to transform Africa University to become a leading institution that does not only go for quality education, but also goes for quality leadership traits,” he told UM News soon after the Oct. 28 announcement.
Mageto said that running a private university is “not an easy thing.”
“People think that running a Christian university is straightforward, but that’s not true. Anything called university has the same story that you hear in every university, but this one is different because my board of directors are people who fear God,” he said.
His vision for the institution is to see it create avenues to mobilize resources and move toward sustainability.
“I want my staff to move out of here every day feeling excited about working at Africa University,” he explained. “Sustainability is not just about the accounts balance, but it’s about the total well-being of everyone involved at Africa University, their holistic well-being.”
The vice chancellor said he wanted to see the school move its focus from STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to STEAM, which also incorporates education in the arts.
“In order for you to have a good engineering program, you need someone also with good psychological skills or mental health to run an engineering program.
“People are discovering that as much as we talk about innovation, people need to be taught how to be in relationships. And the people who do the humanities, they are the people who tell us how to relate,” Mageto said. “We have started but want to scale it up so that our students take university-wide courses which are supposed to be introducing them to STEAM.”
During the Oct. 25-27 meeting, board members celebrated the announcement of a $750,000 grant from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries to revitalize the university’s Mutare United Methodist Education Company Farm.
The grant will run from November through October 2027. It is the second from Global Ministries, which supported the farm last year with $500,000 under the Yambasu Agriculture Initiative.
Mageto explained that previously the farm had been operating as a commercial entity while running on tuition fees to fund its operations.
“The tuition money didn’t come back, so the cycle wasn’t complete. We stopped using the tuition fees and the farm died,” he said. “Now we are celebrating as we are witnessing the resurrection and rebirth as the Africa University MUMEC Farm project with support from Global Ministries.”
The Mutare United Methodist Education Company, or MUMEC, is one of the boards that runs the pan-African institution.
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“We decided to move from being a commercial farm, which was heavily in debt, and looked for ways to grow produce for the dining hall, as we were ordering outside the university. The AU MUMEC farm project is a prayer answered,” Mageto said.
Yollanda Yeukai Washaya, project manager for the farm, said the initial investment under the Yambasu Agriculture Initiative enabled significant progress in transforming the farm into a center for sustainable agricultural production, practical learning, research, innovation and community engagement.
Among the key achievements is the establishment of a modern broiler facility with a capacity of 10,000 birds, a 3,000-bird layer facility, rehabilitation and expansion of the piggery, and the establishment of two greenhouses, she said.
The piggery has grown from an initial breeding herd of 14 to more than 200 pigs. The farm is also supplying poultry products, eggs, pork and vegetables to the Ndorimana Bonaventure University Dining Hall and other markets, contributing to the university’s food security efforts.
“Beyond production, the project has benefited more than 500 students through practical learning, industrial attachment, research and innovation activities,” Washaya said. “Working closely with the Department of Agriculture, we are increasingly positioning the farm as a living laboratory where students can apply classroom knowledge to real agricultural production.”
Washaya also highlighted the creation of a Smart Farm Management System by Africa University’s Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization Center working with students from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
The system, which is being deployed across the poultry and piggery enterprises, incorporates digital production records, monitoring and farm management functions. It is designed to improve the tracking of livestock performance, feed utilization, animal health and other production indicators supporting more informed decision-making and efficient farm management.
This locally developed innovation demonstrates the university’s capacity to build practical technological solutions to agricultural challenges while creating opportunities for student innovation and interdisciplinary learning, Washaya said.
The farm project also supported postgraduate research, including a doctorate scholarship focusing on sustainable alternatives for animal feed production. Its contribution to community livelihoods includes training 75 farmers from the Makoni and Mutasa districts in regenerative and climate-resilient agriculture.
Board members also had the opportunity to view one of eight new staff houses that are almost ready for occupation on campus, adding to its existing 15 staff houses.
Wehnam Dabale, the school’s director of Alumni, Internationalization and Church Relations, described the added housing as strategic infrastructure.
“Speaking as an alum, staff and board member with nearly three decades of service and association, I can attest that the importance of such investment is tenfold,” he said. “Upon completion, the self-funded houses will build community, as staff living comfortably on campus become more connected to the institution and its ethos. They will also strengthen Africa University’s reputation as an employer of choice and ultimately reduce staff turnover and recruitment costs over the long run.”
Dabale thanked The United Methodist Church for founding Africa University, adding “we commend management and the board for their foresight.
“This milestone signals that when Methodists work together, greater results follow.”
Chikwanah is a UM News correspondent based in Harare, Zimbabwe.
News media contact: Julie Dwyer at [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.
