Table of Contents

• The visit begins
• Vice Chancellor at Millersville
• Meeting with UCU Partners board
• At Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston, MA
• Council for Christian Colleges and Universities
• Preaching in Boston, Massachusetts
• Meeting with Bishop of ADNE
• UCU’s commitment to international collaboration

The visit begins

Uganda Christian University (UCU) continues to expand its reach beyond the African continent, thanks to the recent visit of the Vice Chancellor, Assoc. Professor Aaron Mushengyezi, to the United States.

During the visit courtesy of the Uganda Partners NGO, Prof. Mushengyezi, accompanied by his wife, Maama Patience, held meetings with various educational institutions to establish collaborative academic and research partnerships. The discussions were fruitful, and several U.S. colleges and universities agreed to collaborate with UCU on staff and student exchange, study abroad programs, and research initiatives.

Vice Chancellor at Millersville

Millersville University in Millersville, Pennsylvania, was one of the institutions that agreed to work with UCU. President Daniel A. Wubah and staff of the International Office met with Prof. Mushengyezi and agreed to host UCU staff on scholarly visits and send students to UCU on study abroad programs. Wheaton College in Chicago, Illinois, pledged to provide mentorship training for UCU staff and tutors in the UCU Writing Centre.

Meeting with UCU Partners board

The visit was not limited to educational institutions only. The Vice Chancellor also attended the annual Board meeting of the UCU Partners in Ambridge, Pennsylvania (9^th to 11^th February 2023), where he thanked the Partners Board and friends of UCU for their continuous support of various projects at the university, the most recent being the UCU School of Medicine and School of Dentistry. Partners, founded by UCU’s first Vice Chancellor, Rev. Prof. Stephen Noll, pledged continued support to UCU. Noll and his wife, Peggy, hosted Prof. and Mrs. Mushengyezi to a dinner at their home in Sewickley, Pennsylvania.

At Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, Boston, MA

In Boston, Massachusetts, the VC’s team visited the Campus for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME) at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, where they discussed possibilities of staff exchange in theological education and African diaspora studies with the Dean of CUME, Rev. Dr. Virginia Ward. The Seminary has trained former UCU staff such as Rev. Amos Kimera, who pastors St. Peters Anglican Church of Uganda in Boston.  Gordon Conwell sends study-abroad students to UCU as well, and the Seminary is willing to host UCU theological staff and students for scholarly visits. Dr. Ward promised to visit UCU for further engagements. 

Council for Christian Colleges and Universities

In addition to visits to universities and Colleges, the Vice Chancellor attended the Presidents’ Annual Conference of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) in Washington D.C. from 1^st to 3^rd February 2023. UCU is an international affiliate member of the CCCU. He held meetings with the CCCU President, Dr. Shirley Hoogstra, and Presidents of other universities and colleges that send study-abroad students to UCU.

Preaching in Boston, Massachusetts

The VC also visited Truro Anglican Church and Church of the Epiphany in Fairfax, Virginia. Both churches pledged support to various projects and scholarships at UCU through UCU Partners. Prof. Mushengyezi preached at St. Peters Anglican Church of Uganda in Boston where Rev. Kimera, his wife, Florence, and the Parishioners (who are mostly Ugandans), received the team warmly and pledged support to UCU programmes.

Meeting with Bishop of ADNE

At the end of his visit, Prof. Mushengyezi and his wife paid a courtesy call to the Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of New England (ADNE), the Rt. Rev. Andrew Williams. He pledged to host UCU theology students and scholars to deepen their skills and experience in cross-cultural ministry in his Diocese.

UCU’s commitment to international collaboration

The Vice Chancellor’s American visit highlights UCU’s commitment to international collaboration and partnership building. The university is keen to foster relations with like-minded institutions to create opportunities for staff and student development and to advance research and scholarship in various fields.

As UCU continues to expand its network of partners worldwide, it remains committed to providing a world-class education that is rooted in Christian values and principles.

By Dr. Emilly Comfort Maractho

The outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020 created substantial fear among communities and countries about the future. It seemed to have come from ‘nowhere’ even after China announced its arrival. Many questions arose as to whether it was deliberately created and released by scientists and their allies for some unknown reasons. 

Governments across the globe launched interventions to facilitate the public’s compliance with preventive and mitigative measures, also known as Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). The measures included physical distancing also known as social distancing, regular handwashing, wearing masks, and vaccination to boost herd immunity

Speculation soon became a common feature of COVID-19, about the cause, the effects, and the people behind it. Theories begun to emerge around these issues. 

Uganda enacted legislations, restrictions, policies and interventions to prevent and mitigate the spread and impact of COVID-19. These included, but were not limited to, the Uganda Public Health (Control of COVID – 19) Rules, 2020; guidelines on mass gatherings including social meetings such as burials and weddings; guidelines on meeting at workplaces, guidelines on use of public transport; among others.  

Whereas the world was relieved about the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, emergent concerns around safety and effects were prevalent. The concerns and doubts about vaccines were mainly driven by conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 vaccination, sometimes widely shared among the population.  

Conspiracy theories cannot be taken lightly. At Uganda Christian University, Prof. Kukunda Elizabeth Bacwayo, an Associate Prof. of Governance and Development in the School of Social Sciences, with a multi-disciplinary team of colleagues from UCU were awarded a research grant by the university to study how conspiracy beliefs affected COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy in Uganda. In a three-year project that covers a large-scale online and physical survey of over 1000 respondents, to be followed by in-depth interviews, the team aims at examining the conspiracy beliefs and their implications for COVID-19 vaccination in Uganda. 

The research is guided by five specific objectives, namely: 

(i) To measure the extent to which conspiracy belief about vaccination against COVID-19 is spread among Ugandans; 

(ii) To establish the relationship between conspiracy belief and vaccination hesitancy in Uganda; 

(iii) To explore the interaction between exposure to COVID-19 conspiracy theories and individual vaccination decisions; 

(iv) To examine the gendered impact of conspiracy belief on vaccination hesitancy; 

(v) To examine how the conspiracy beliefs of adults are likely to affect decision to vaccinate children for COVID-19.  

The researchers note that, whereas in developed countries studies have already established the significant relationship between conspiracy theories and decline in vaccination rates, such studies are very few in developing countries. For instance, Maftei and Holman in 2020, in their study, ‘beliefs in conspiracy theories, intolerance of uncertainty, and moral disengagement during the coronavirus crisis’ highlighted that conspiracy beliefs had significant impact on disobeying the social distancing regulations seeking to limit the spread of the SARS-CoV-2.

The researchers are aware that in countries like Uganda with a population highly characterized by low education and poor access to information, beliefs in conspiracy theories and impact are expected to be high.  Still, little is known and done to minimize the impact of misinformation on COVID-19 prevention. In addition, with more people owning smartphones, conspiracy theories are likely to flourish as a result of high exposure to various ideas. 

Some of the examples of conspiracy theories include:

• The belief that the G5 cellular network is responsible for causing COVID-19,
• Bill Gates’ plan to depopulate the world,
• Vaccinations having microchips that can be used to monitor behaviour. 
• Others include the belief that those who get vaccinated will die in a few years, and that the whole COVID-19 pandemic was a political stunt.  

The primary outcome of this study is to understand how conspiracy beliefs affect the individual willingness to get vaccinated. Findings from this study could be used to improve on the efforts geared towards pro-vaccine attitudes and interest in COVID-19 vaccination. The main outcome will be a change in behavior towards vaccination for COVID-19 despite the existence of conspiracy theories and management of future vaccination drives.

The research has gone through both institutional and national ethical clearance processes. The first phase has been completed and will soon be made public.