Tag: Nigeria

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Stories In Focus

Houghton Welcomes New Electronic Resource Librarian

Two months ago, Houghton College welcomed new librarian, Doyin Adenuga, to campus. With a background in electronic resources and librarian studies, Adenuga’s experience made him more than qualified for the job here at Houghton.

Photo by: Nate Moore
Photo by: Nate Moore

According to Adenuga, he and his family have lived in the United States and Canada for 12 years. Before moving to the U.S. in 2004, Adenuga was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, formerly the capital city of Nigeria, where he met his now wife. He went on to study electronic technologies at Obafeni Awolowo University in Osun State, Nigeria. After marrying in Nigeria, Adenuga and his wife relocated to Wisconsin for four years at the University of Wisconsin. The transition from Nigeria to the U.S. was a cold one when the Adenuga’s arrived in the winter, but after some time, he adjusted from the 90-degree weather of home to the brutal winter temperatures in Wisconsin.

From there, Adenuga and his wife moved to Canada where he worked for a private company and earned his masters degree in library and informational studies. Before his most recent move, Adenuga and his family lived and worked in Missouri until he heard about a new position. After finding an open librarian position at Houghton College on a job search website, Doyin Adenuga applied, interviewed and accepted the position here as the electronic resources librarian.

“Doyin is a wonderful addition to our library family,” said Sharleen Holmes, Houghton Library Operations Manager. “Because of his vast experience with webpage design, one of the first tasks he was given was updating and making our library webpage more intuitive and user friendly.”

Adenuga has already made significant changes to the library technologies including the catalog, web page, and databases, according to David Stevick, Director of Libraries and Information Resources. He added that Adenuga has stepped up to the challenge of a new web page design by making a more functional, user-friendly and attractive library web page. He also maintains the electronic and E-book databases for the library and assists at the research desk.

Along with Adenuga’s skills and expertise, he has high respect for Houghton as a Christian institution. The connection between his faith and this librarian position is one of the reasons the job opening appealed to Adenuga. Holmes said, “He’s very kind, intelligent, and patient, especially with those of us who aren’t anywhere near as tech savvy as he is. His knowledge and talents round out the expertise of our librarians nicely and we feel fortunate to have him here in the library.”

Categories
International News

Boko Haram Attacks in Nigeria

The Boko Hararm, a militant terrorist group in Nigeria, attacked and took control of Monguno,Nigeria on Sunday. The town hosts a large military barracks and is home to 100,000 people. The group also launched an attack on the Borno State capital city of Maiduguri, 85 miles from Monguno, but did not take control. All this after the Baga Massacre earlier this year, in which over 2,000 people were killed.

Survivors of the recent attacks reported the rebels came through villages, slitting throats, looting and burning homes, and abducting women and children. Officials said these attack were a significant advance in a campaign to encircle Maiduguri that started last summer, as reported by The New York Times. More than 200 combatants died in the fighting, mainly insurgents, according to The Guardian.

DESERT SHIELDThe town of Monguno, with its military barracks, previously acted as an important protection for Maiduguri. Now, with the fall of Monguno, the Boko Haram are in a better position to advance on Maiduguri.

The two cities are in a strategic position in the northeast, near the neighboring countries of Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, has expressed intentions of expanding the attacks to nearby Niger and Cameroon. According to The Wall Street Journal, Chad is presently spared from threats because of the French anti-Islamist military group, Operation Barkhane. Headquartered in Chad’s capital, Operation Barkhane has 3,000 French forces.

The Boko Haram killed an estimated 11,245 people in 2014, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. The Wall Street Journal reported these recent ruthless events by the Boko Haram, including the Baga Massacre, are due to a shift from insurgency tactics to governance. Following similar tactics of Islamic State of Iraq and Syrica (ISIS), Boko Haram is employing a warlord model for governance in the areas that take control.

These recent attacks come before Nigeria’s upcoming elections on Feb. 14. John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state, visited Lagos, the nation’s commercial capital, at the same time of these attacks. He was there to encourage peaceful elections next month.

The New York Times reported, “Mr. Kerry said the United States was prepared to do more to help the faltering Nigerian Military.” However, “He warned that the level of American support would be influenced by the determination of Nigeria’s politicians to carry out a fair and peaceful election.”.

Categories
News

After a Two Year Decline, the Incoming Class is Up 10% From Last Year

After two straight years of decline in enrollment, Houghton’s numbers have risen again. “We are back up,” said Eric Currie, Vice President for Enrollment Management.

There are 302 new students this fall, more than a ten percent increase compared to last year’s incoming class of 277. Of those 302 students, 50 are transfers and 26 are international. China, Cameroon, Nigeria, Uganda, and Venezuela are just a few of the countries represented by the new students at Houghton.

In order to bring numbers up this semester the admissions team, alongside the marketing and the communications offices, thought of new ways to advertise Houghton College. “We started with updating the branding of the college,” said Ryan Spear, Associate Director of Admission. Through things like the “Rethink” campaign, Spear said the admissions team wanted to challenge prospective students to reconsider their education and what it means to them.

In an effort to reach out to prospective students, the admissions team made appearances this summer at events such as Soulfest, Creation, and Kingdom Bound. Also, the addition of new sports teams and the Kerr-Pegula athletic facility assisted in the increase in numbers of enrollment.

JoshDuttweiler_AdmissionsAdmissions attempted to emphasize the personalization of the application process, to which Currie and Spear attribute the success of incoming new students. Things such as personalized acceptance letters and arranging a perspective’s visitation day in an attempt to accommodate their interests are a few things that “set Houghton apart from other schools,” said Spear.

Even though it is time consuming to personalize so much of the prospective student process, it is certainly worth it to Spear. Prospective students ranked Houghton very high in personal communication. “My acceptance letter was really sweet and personal, it included things from my application and mentioned my recommendations which was cool,” said freshman, Erica Barney.

Admissions counselors helped incoming students to prepare and eager to attend Houghton. Barney said that her admissions counselor was “really sweet and right off the bat and was talking to me about what to look forward to when I came to Houghton.”

It wasn’t always easy getting potential students to enroll though, Currie said economics was the largest struggle this past year. In a survey taken by prospective students, the majority said the greatest barrier of being unable to attend Houghton was finances. Spear said fear of loans and affordability of  tuition kept potential students from applying to Houghton.

Now Houghton has a partnership with the Loan Repayment Assistance Program foundation (LRAP) to help out with those financial issues. Spear said that the LRAP serves as a “safety net for students.” This program covers up to 100% of all federal, private, and Parent PLUS loans at no cost to the student or parent. Spear said, “It addresses people’s financial confidence and allows students to pursue their calling right away.”

Admissions is hoping to meet their stretch goal of 315 enrolling new students in the fall of 2015 and is already preparing for next year, Currie said,“We are already in full swing.” Admissions recently ran their first email campaign and have already started to receive applications from prospective students. Spear said admissions staff will continue the personalization that is so well known of the college.

Admissions is reaching out to the largest number of students ever, visiting over 150 college fairs and 225 high schools this fall. Though that is likely to draw in many perspectives, the admissions team is trying not to get ahead of themselves. “We are trying to be realistic on what we can attain,” said Currie.