Our Mythical Childhood...

Report by Daniel Nkemleke

Our Mythical Childhood Project gets an applause of the Vice-Rector in Charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World, at a meeting at ENS (Ecole Normale Supérieure), University of Yaoundé 1

On a visit to Ecole Normale Supérieure (ENS) of the University of Yaounde 1 on Friday March 26, 2021, the Vice-Rector in Charge of Research, Cooperation and Relations with the Business World, Professor Mathias Owona Nguini, applauded the impact of Our Mythical Childhood (OMC) Project, among others. The meeting, which was attended by over 50 academics of all rank and profile drawn from 14 academic departments in ENS, had been initiated by the University, to assess the impact of national and international research projects that were hosted by the University, and to discuss how such research results could be made more visible to the academic public in particular, and the wider society in general. The visit was one in a series of many others which the Vice-Rector is scheduled to undertake in 6 other faculties and schools of the University of Yaoundé 1.

The Vice Rector, Professor Mathias Owona Nguini, is in the tall man in the middle of the front roll, flanked to the left by the Director of ENS, Professor Annie Sylvie Wakata, and to the extreme left, Professor Daniel Nkemleke. The other person in white shirt in the front roll to the rigt of the Vice Rector is the Director of Studies at ENS, Professor Achille Ntyam. This was only a cross-section of the participants. Covid restrictions were in place.

OMC Project was one of the four projects selected for presentation during a previous school meeting to prepare for the visit. The criterion for selection was taken to be local and international impact, with ramifications for sustainable development in the disciplines and in the wider society. The other three projects were in chemistry, sciences of education, and philosophy. Each project’s leader was given 7 minutes to present their project, after which a question and answer session followed. Divine Che Neba and Eleanor Dasi accompanied me in the presentation.

From left to right: Divine Che Neba, Eleanor A. Dasi, and Daniel A. Nkemleke delivering a lecture at the workshops The Present Meets the Past in 2018 at the Faculty of “Artes Liberales”, University of Warsaw 

The Vice-Rector promised that the University of Yaounde 1 was going to put in a place a mechanism through which the University community would be regularly informed of the results of research projects hosted by the institution. A research bulletin or newsletter were mentioned as some of the strategies for dissemination of research findings. This initiative, the Vice-Rector recommended, should be started at the level of the school (ENS), and then at the level of the University.

Meetings of this nature are not a common occurrence in the University. We have had many occasions in the past to talk about OMC project. However, the audience had always been predominantly students. The Vice-Rector’s maiden visit introduced our project to an audience that was exclusively made of University teachers from a wide range of disciplines.