New Vice Chancellor Begins Tenure with a Call for Collaboration
By Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA, AMECEA News
As the new Vice Chancellor/Rector, Very Rev. Prof. Elias Omondi Opongo begins his mission; he clearly notes that “No single office, department, or campus will carry the university’s next chapter alone.”
In an interview with AMECEA Online News on Tuesday, September 15, Rev. Prof. Opongo stresses “collegiality” and “synodality,” saying that the staff, students, and other stakeholders will “work together for the growth of CUEA,” affirming collaboration as he takes up this responsibility at the helm of the University.
He said, “Whatever role the staff members play at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa, each person must know that he or she is important. The biggest responsibility is for each person to do the work, and do it well. That is the spirit of stewardship and responsibility. And we are accountable, not just to the leadership, but to God, and to the students.”
Rev. Prof. Opongo, a member of the Society of Jesus founded by St. Ignatius of Loyola, took over as CUEA’s Vice Chancellor on 1st September 2026, becoming the University’s first Missionary Priest/Jesuit to hold the office.
As CUEA’s first Missionary Priest and Jesuit Vice Chancellor, Fr. Opongo says he carries a distinct spiritual and institutional heritage to this new responsibility, one built on partnership rather than isolation.
He expressed the Magis concept of St. Ignatius of Loyola, which is a Latin word for “more,” saying he has already shared it with students, faculty, and staff: “We should not be satisfied with the little we have; we should not be satisfied with mediocrity, but we need to push for excellence.”
He also pointed to the wider network of thousands of Catholic Universities worldwide and over 170 Jesuit institutions of higher learning as fertile ground for the kind of external collaboration he hopes to cultivate through international partnerships and joint initiatives.
Before joining CUEA, the Kenyan cleric spent 14 years at Hekima University College, a constituent of CUEA, where his career has been shaped by collaboration across roles and institutions. He served as Dean of Peace Studies and International Relations for seven years and later as Director of the Centre for Research, Training and Publications for six and a half years; a centre he founded in 2013 to combine training, community outreach, and research on peacebuilding.
His academic grounding includes peace studies, international relations, conflict resolution, international security, diplomacy, theology, and social ethics. This combination, he says, will directly inform how he leads.
“In peace studies, we also look at mediation and conflict resolution; that is a value, because any society has its own conflicts and challenges,” he said, adding that, “In international relations, there is the whole idea of how we interconnect and engage with different entities.”
Rev. Prof. Opongo further connected his collaborative vision to the wider Church’s priorities, pointing out to the resolutions of the recent plenary of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA) which focused on youth, saying he intends to “mobilize CUEA’s research centres and a planned Centre for Student Excellence and Innovation to support young people directly, including through research into youth participation in liturgy and pastoral work.
Reflecting on his first official day at CUEA, the Jesuit cleric stressed being struck by the “Catholicness” of the institution and the warmth of his reception from students and staff alike.
“I have the impression of the great potential for this Catholic university. There is much that can still be done to help us realize the changes that we want,” he said.
During the Tuesday interview, Rev. Prof. Opongo credited his predecessor, Very Rev. Prof. Stephen Mbugua Ngari, for steering CUEA through a period of financial difficulty, even as the university had to part with some property to stay afloat.
“He turned around the university financially, and now we need to move from stabilization to transformation and into full growth,” he expressed.
According to the new Vice Chancellor, that growth includes reviving student enrolment toward the university’s full capacity of roughly 12,000 students, alongside launching new academic programs already approved by the university council, including a professional School of Business and a College of Health Sciences, which he says could eventually expand to include a teaching hospital.
At the same time, Rev. Prof. Opongo signalled to critically review and, where necessary, discontinue underperforming programs while introducing new ones aligned with market needs.
He suggested that whatever transformation the University takes, it will be pursued not through “top-down mandates,” but through a deliberately shared effort that includes the staff, students, and partner institutions walking together.
This article has been republished from AMECEA NEWS.