Desalegne Mengesha Degefaw: Expanding Higher Education in Ethiopia
Desalegne Mengesha Degefaw is an Ethiopian university administrator and academic who in December 2015 was named president of the University of Gondar (UoG), one of the largest and most distinguished higher education institutions in the country, with more than 40,000 students in 10 colleges inside five campuses, 1,700 faculty, and more than 4,500 administrative staff and health professionals. Desalegne (he prefers to be identified by his first name) has helped manage the institution’s tremendous expansion in size and academic offerings. Over the last seven years, UoG has expanded the number of undergraduate and postgraduate programs from 25 to 70 and from eight to more than 90, respectively, has added two new campuses to three existing ones, and has expanded the number of students from 12,000 to 40,000. Desalegne has extensive international experience, having served as a Fulbright visiting scholar at Ohio State University in 2013–14, where he strengthened existing partnerships between colleges and units between the two universities, and through current service as a 2015 NAFSA Global Dialogue Fellow. He is also active in higher education initiatives within Ethiopia, one of Africa’s most populous countries, where he serves as the chair of the Forum of Public Higher Education Institutions in the Amhara region of the country and as a member of two national higher education councils. He holds a doctorate of veterinary medicine from Addis Ababa University.
