Dear Hawassa University community,

I am truly honored and pleased to extend my best wishes for the Ethiopian New Year 2017 to the entire HU community and beyond.

First of all, I'd like to express my heart-felt gratitude to all of you for your incredible efforts in making the last academic year a success by overcoming all the challenges we faced.

I sincerely thank our academic and administrative staff, our beloved students (both domestic and international), expatriate staff, visiting scholars, as well as the domestic and international partners for your priceless contributions to our overall success!

Wishing you all a very peaceful and fruitful new academic year (2017 EC), I would like to send out my message which is directed towards the three pillars of Hawassa University’s mission and vision upon which all of our activities are based.

TEACHING-LEARNING: is one of the pillars of our university with a vision of producing internationally competent and qualified graduates. Last year’s academic calendar was crowded with different programs pushed out of the routine schedule because of the residual effects of national and international incidents, so it was not an easy year for both our students and staff. Even though we had to run three semesters within a year, our undergraduate students made us proud during the national exit exam where more than 90% of them scored pass mark. Their remarkable success is a real testament that we stayed resilient and managed the challenges well because all of us worked in unison and great sense of commitment. The 2017 academic year is relatively better as the normal pace of calendars will be resumed which I hope will make us more productive.

RESEARCH: In addition to the thematic areas of research and technology transfer identified by HU, many individual and joint endeavors were launched by the staff and researchers from partner institutions in 2016 E.C. There is a growing need and focus on research and technology transfer as HU is now transitioning towards an Autonomous Research University in a couple of years. Hence, we are working on extensive research engagements involving our academic staff and graduate students, and there is a promising development in collaborative projects with all our local, regional and international partners over the years. Two of our research journals have been nationally accredited by the MoE in 2015 EC, a milestone that will encourage us to put more effort in other emerging journals for accreditation and strengthening those two. In general, there is a need for us to work harder on the direction of knowledge dissemination and publication by ensuring the quality and relevance of our research undertakings in the new year.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENTS: comprise a wide range of activities and professional support rendered by individuals and/or groups from HU to the surrounding community and beyond. Hawassa University has been engaged in diversifying and strengthening community services delivered to the nearby society directed towards demand-driven and relevant areas of intervention over the last academic year. Still, we need to work harder in the new academic year to improve our community engagements by actively engaging the beneficiaries for better impacts and sustainability.

At last, I would like to reiterate my best wishes to all of us in the 2017 Ethiopian New Year.

May the new academic year be a year of success and more accomplishments for us all!

Sincerely,

Dr. Chirotaw Ayele Gizaw (I/President)