Hope University College
3rd Quarter 2008 Report

Hope University College addressed a number of issues during the quarter.  Dr. Minas Hiruy, the founding president, prepared a project proposal for operations and submitted the same to the three major donors.  The recruitment for the two vice presidents started in July putting job ads in the Reporter and the Monitor.  A selection committee was set up by the advisory board.  Planning to open the university college in September 2009, the president began to work on faculty recruitment, book collection for the library and classes.  He managed to find volunteers in four areas in the US to collect relevant books for the library.  The places for the collection are Seattle, Menlo Park, San Jose and Ft. Washington, MD. As to textbooks he was working on various ways by which either publishers can make contributions or purchases can be made at reasonable prices.  With the course lists being completed for the freshman year, book lists are being researched on the Internet.  Planning to leave for the US starting from the end of September for three weeks, Dr. Minas had managed to line up speaking engagements and radio interviews to kick off the book drives. 

Similarly, he has arranged various contact points to talk with interested faculty members that may wish to come either as volunteers or on a paid basis.  These plans had been made at various universities including Stanford University and partner organizations.  Dr. Minas has also planned to observe operations at Fresno Pacific University, a university within the size of Hope University College.  The issue of furnishing was also raised during the quarter.  We have had a Dutch furniture manufacturer that had a branch in Ethiopia look at the building designs and make proposals of furnishing to the specifications of the design.   Through the cooperation of the project manager of the construction, Mr. Hoffius, search was made for furniture using companies like IKEA as a reference fro comparison.  The other option looked at was the involvement of our carpentry shop in the manufacturing of some of the furniture with strict supervision for quality.

The university college has its own website thanks to the efforts of Mr. John Van Deman of Menlo Park.  Please visit it at   www.hopeuniversitycollege.org.  We have been working on the business curriculum with partners from Dronten Agricultural University and Christian University of Ede as coordinated by Dr. Corne Kocks.  A team plans to come before the end of the year to firm up further steps.  A new introduction to the university college is competency based training and this would be discussed by the team given that the two institutions had applied the method.  The Advisory Board of the university college met on September 25 and on that evening there was dinner to acquaint the members of the advisory board with the members of our Board.

On the construction end, a lot has been going on.  A team was in China in August constituting the president, the Board’s Chairman, Mr. Negash Kebede and the project manager, Mr.  Hoffius, on our side and the consultant on the other side to select the finishing materials of the construction.  While checking the quality and type of materials that the contractor was to buy as per our contract, the team also checked for furniture, computers, generator, etc. Though the rains slowed down the work at the site, work continued with increasing prices causing variation charges.  The president has been talking with government on the VAT issue and the matter had been referred to a committee by the Minister of Finance.

Office of Public Relations
Hope Enterprises
155 Churchill Road
P.O. Box 30153
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Tel: +251-11-1560345/1560346
Fax: +251-11-1552638
Email:
Website: hopeuniversitycollege.org

2nd Quarter 2008 Report