Vice President for Academic Affairs
Hawassa University (HU) is one of the first generation public and autonomous Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in Ethiopia (PROCLAMATION No. 127/1999). It has 7 campuses, four of which are located at Hawassa town, the capital of Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Regional State (SNNPRS); and 270 Kms. away from Addis Ababa. Whereas the remaining three campuses are located at Wondo Genet, Awada and Bensa Daye out of the town of Hawassa.
The university is one of the biggest and top ranking universities in the country. It is also one of the two universities, in addition to University of Addis Ababa, to have a membership status in the Association for African Universities (AAU).
Due to the decision by the government of Ethiopia to expand HEI's and huge investment in the sector, the university has assumed rapid growth both in its infrastructure, teaching-learning, and research facilities. The university has also undergone institutional transformation in its organizational structure and business processes since 2008. As a result the academic and research wing of the university is re-organized into eight colleges and two institutes where the smallest academic and research units are Departments and Schools comprising one or more study programs. Hence, it gives me a great pleasure to provide you a brief information as to current status of HU focusing on the teaching learning process.
Nowadays, we are training students in 97 undergraduate and 123 post graduate programs (of which 21 are PhD programs) in the area of Agriculture, Business and Economics, Forestry and Natural Resources, Law and Governance, Medicine and Health Sciences, Natural and Computational Sciences, Social Science and Humanities and Technology.
When it comes to staff composition, at the moment HU has a total of 1,630 academic staff. Out of the total 18 of them are full Professors, 52 associate professors, 298 assistant professors, 976 lecturers and 286 graduate assistants.
Currently, we are catering a student population of above 43,000 enrolled in 97 undergraduate and 123 postgraduate programs (including PhD) in the 2019/2020 academic year. It is worth noting that 19% of our students are female.
What is more, HU has created training opportunities both at undergraduate and postgraduate level to the community in the town of Hawassa and the surrounding provinces through extension and summer schemes. Today around 4,323 students are enrolled in the Distance and Continuing Education program of HU.
We look forward to be working with HEI's, research institutes, organizations and other stakeholders for the betterment of our society.
Kind regards,
Dr. Ing. Fisiha Getachew Argaw
Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA)
E-mail: fisihagetachew@gmailcom
Tel: +251-462204627
Fax: +251-462205187
- O. Box: 05
Hawassa, Ethiopia
