About the University
A first-generation Nigerian university, built out of a technical institute and now teaching across two campuses in Benin City.
From an institute of technology to a university
Established 23 November 1970, as the Midwest Institute of Technology
The university opened as the Midwest Institute of Technology, set up to train the engineers and technologists the newly created region needed and to keep that training inside it. Its first students read engineering and the applied sciences.
It became a university within the decade, and the faculties that followed — law, the arts, the social sciences, pharmacy, medicine — were added to a technical foundation rather than laid alongside one. That order is still legible in the place: the engineering and science faculties are the oldest buildings on the Ugbowo campus, and the teaching hospital grew from the medical school rather than the other way round.
Today it is one of the country's first-generation universities, and among the most applied-to institutions in the region.
How the university is put together
Two colleges, seventeen faculties and schools, and the centres and institutes that carry the research. Departments sit inside faculties; programmes sit inside departments.
Colleges
- College of Medical Sciences
- College of Education
Faculties and Schools
- Faculty of Agriculture
- Faculty of Arts
- Faculty of Education
- Faculty of Engineering
- Faculty of Environmental Sciences
- Faculty of Law
- Faculty of Life Sciences
- Faculty of Management Sciences
- Faculty of Pharmacy
- Faculty of Physical Sciences
- Faculty of Social Sciences
Centres and Institutes
- Centre for Petroleum and Environmental Studies
- Centre for Population and Reproductive Health
- Institute of Education
- Institute of Public Administration and Extension Services
Leadership and governance
Vice-Chancellor
Prof. Edoba B. Omoregie, SAN
Leads the university under a published 5-Point Agenda.
Who governs it
The university is run by statutory bodies rather than by an office. Each one answers a different question, and none of them answers all of them.
- The Council
- Holds the university's property and finances, and appoints to its senior posts.
- The Senate
- Decides everything academic — what is taught, how it is examined, and who is awarded a degree.
- Congregation
- The academic and senior administrative staff, meeting as a body.
- Convocation
- The graduates of the university, who elect members to Council.
The principal officers
- The Registrar
- Keeps the records, runs admissions and examinations, and is secretary to Council and Senate.
- The Bursar
- Answers for the money: fees, payroll, and the university's accounts.
- The University Librarian
- Runs the John Harris Library and the faculty collections.