New CEO for Nairobi-based Tangaza University College Appointed

New CEO for Nairobi-based Tangaza University College Appointed

CANAA || By Father Don Bosco Onyalla, Nairobi || 08 June 2017

The Board of Trustees of Tangaza University College (TUC), has appointed Rev. Prof. Stephen Mbugua Ngari to become the new CEO of the Nairobi-based Catholic Institution effective from July 1, 2017.

He will be succeeding Father Steven Payne, OCD, who has been holding the title of Tangaza University Principal.

Father Payne has told CANAA that he plans to take a month’s home leave in the U.S. and later sabbatical leave, during which he hopes to work on language skills, among them French, Spanish and/or Kiswahili.

TUC, which is affiliated to the Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), is jointly owned by several member Religious/Missionary Congregations. The institution applied for a Charter and is in the process of finalizing the process to become a fully-fledged university in Kenya.

Rev. Prof. Mbugua who belongs to Kenya’s Catholic diocese of Nakuru will carry the title “Vice-Chancellor (VC) Designate” until Tangaza receives its university charter.

He was appointed at the Board of Trustee’s meeting of May 31, 2017.

In the letter announcing the new CEO’s appointment, the chairman of the Board, Father Gary A. Mueller of the Congregation of the Mission (CM) welcomed Rev. Prof. Mbugua to the Tangaza community, promising support.

“We are very happy to welcome Fr. Stephen Mbugua Ngari to the Tangaza Community and promise him our prayers, our friendship, and our full support as he takes on this challenging task,” Father Mueller stated in the announcement addressed to TUC community.

The TUC VC-designate holds a doctorate in educational psychology from Egerton University, where he has served as the Dean of Students, the Director of University Welfare Services, as well as the Chair of the Department of Psychology, Counseling, and Educational Foundations. 

He has served as a resource person for the Commission for University Education in Kenya.

“The Tangaza community would like to register a hearty thanks to Fr. Steven Payne for his many years of dedicated service to Tangaza and we promise him our prayers and our best wishes,” Father Mueller continued in the announcement letter distributed via email on June 2.

TUC, which started as an institution that rose from the cooperation of some Missionary Congregations has grown exponentially to bring together about 100 Religious/Missionary Congregations with students and lecturers hailing from over 40 countries.

The first group of students, twenty in number, were enrolled to the institution on 25 August 1986, having come from seven different countries to pursue theological studies as part of their formation to priesthood.

Since then, the institution has opened its doors to Christians and non-Christians who meet admission requirements, training them for ministry in its various institutes, among them theology, education, social transformation, spirituality and religious formation, social communication, youth ministry and catechetics, leadership and management.