Inaugural Lecture is Compulsory, Our Target is to have 50th Edition This Year – ESUT VC
By Amaechi Agbo
The Vice Chancellor, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Professor Aloysius Michaels Okolie has emphasised that presentation of inaugural lecture by professor in the university is compulsory even as he anticipates that ESUT targets to deliver its 50th inaugural lecture this year.
Professor Okolie who disclosed this in his opening address during the 44th Inaugural lecture of ESUT on Thursday, April 3rd, 2025, said that Inaugural lecture is a key component of professorial ranking stating that a professor who didn’t deliver his inaugural lecture is an “ordinary professor”.
“I am always very happy each time am involved in this process, basically, inaugural lecture is a reflection that the day you will do it is the day you will announce that you have arrived within the committee of academics.
“You can be promoted as a Professor and if you retire without doing the inaugural lecture, you will be a retiring salary earner professor, but if you conclude your inaugural lecture, you will now be classified as a Distinguished Professor of that university.
“Whatever that is making a Professor not present inaugural lecture sometimes manifests in what the person has to tell the public. So if you don’t have anything to tell the public, please don’t present inaugural lecture.
“People are now answering doctors, even traditional rulers are now coming for Honourary Doctorate Awards, the medicine practitioners at the local villages are now answering doctors. You have seen that some politicians are now equally answering professors.
“So the only thing that will make you distinct from such people is to put Distinguished against your name.
“I will not give anybody that didn’t present inaugural lecture, if need be, contract or adjunct, I will give only to distinguished academics. Inaugural Lecture is very compulsory, we don’t joke with it. That’s why we are so glad today we are already moving so fast, 44th and 45th is holding on April 10th, 46th on May 10th.
“Our prayer is that this year, we must move beyond 50, ESUT is over 30 years, even if it is one a year we would have gone beyond this, so we must hit by the end of the year 50 or beyond 50.
“Remember last December, Management had to host Distinguished Professors for a banquet, we didn’t host Professors, we hosted Distinguished Professors to a banquet,” he stated.
As at the time of this report, Prof Charles Chime is delivering the 45th inaugural Lecture of at the Peter Ndubuisi Mbah Auditorium while Professor Uchenna Ekwochi will deliver the 46th edition on Thursday, 10th May, 2025 at the College of Medicine Auditorium, Parklane, Enugu State.
