“I enjoyed working with all the colleagues in this college and I am grateful to the appointing authority for giving me the opportunity to serve. I thank the Principal Associate Prof. Josephine Ahikire for creating a good environment that enabled us to move this far”.
These are the concluding statements from the Ag. outgoing Deputy Principal Dr. Julius Kikooma while handing over office to the Principal College of Humanities and Social Sciences (CHUSS) Associate Prof. Josephine Ahikire in a ceremony that was held in the CHUSS Smart room on Friday 18th March 2022.
“I felt we did much and put CHUSS to a certain road and I hope the college will continue on the same path. I am ready for deployment to any assignment”, Dr. Kikooma added.
Dr. Julius Kikooma was appointed Acting Deputy Principal CHUSS on 27th April, 2020, a post he has served up to 4th March, 2022.
As Deputy Principal Dr. Kikooma was responsible for coordination and management of academic programmes within the college, knowledge transfer partnerships and networking and providing quarterly reports to the Principal.
In a summarized two-paged hand over report, Dr. Kikooma said, he assumed office during the COVID-19 lock down and embarked on the onlinisation strategies that the university was working on.
Dr. Kikooma coordinated college programmes for training and capacity building in e-learning system, established an e-learning implementation focal team conducting a crush program for staff capacity building on alternative modes of teaching during the era of social distancing.
Building on the first semester of the last academic year, Kikooma said, efforts were made to ensure courses were well developed. Online pedagogy for new staff as well as continuous e-skilling and other capacity building efforts including e- moderation training.
“Over 160 staff enrolled for trainings. Post evaluation training report indicated that over 60% completed their course transformation, over 40 % able to uploaded their courses and about 11% of the participants developed competencies to qualify as local champions to mentor others in blended learning”, Dr. Kikooma said
Dr. Kikooma’s hand over report also highlights that there has been continuous capacity building for the school-based e-learning coordinators to make them champions for MUELE and other ODEL approaches that encouraged staff to migrate to MUELE while using zoom, google meet and email to compliment MUELE.
The report also indicates that during his term of office, a number of programs were reviewed and approved by the academic board. Dr. Kikooma however pointed out pending programs that require approval and accreditation especially those offered at institutions affiliated to CHUSS. These include MA in Religious and Theological Studies offered at Ggaba and Kinyamasika National Seminary, a Post Graduate Diploma in Social Justice offered at Nsamizi and an MA in Defense and Security Studies offered at Kimaka.
To ensure that graduate students are tracked and facilitated, Kikooma reported that the college set up a role of a CHUSS Graduate coordinator that has added energy in the organization graduate seminars, conversations and continuous tracking of the status of graduate students. By time of handing over, the college is on track to repeat last years record of presenting the highest number of PhDs at a single graduation.
Because of the unique context caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns, Dr. Kikooma said, the curriculum to guide internship practice were revised and modified enabling the college to implement a blended internship program.