The second cohort of students will graduate Dec. 10 from a DePaul University program in Nairobi, Kenya, designed to help graduates assume leadership and management roles in their African religious communities and social service organizations.

In partnership with Tangaza College, students in the 18-month program will receive DePaul bachelor of arts degrees after completing the equivalent of an associate degree from Tangaza. DePaul faculty members from the School for New Learning (SNL) collaborate with Tangaza faculty to design the courses and assess student work.

Thirteen students will participate in the Dec. 10 commencement. About half of them are religious men and women, while the rest are laypeople.

One religious sister graduating from the program is studying the impact of personality types on leadership styles in Burundi, while two others are examining community leadership in Kenya and Sudan. A lay student is working with young women who live in informal settlements in Kibera slums, while another nun is exploring how technology can improve the sustainability of faith-based projects in Kenya. Three students are police officers who want to improve the relationships between police and community residents. Several students are studying Kenyan youth, seeking ways to incorporate civic education and responsible use of technology in their lives. Another student is exploring empowerment among the Maasai women.

Graduates of the DePaul University/Tangaza B.A. degree program approach their ministries in holistic ways that address spiritual, moral, intellectual, physical, familial, social, economic and environmental factors. They learn practical skills in areas such as information technology, professional writing, organizational development and financial accounting. The program helps students adapt to new challenges, understand their world from multiple perspectives and minister effectively in diverse settings.

“We are working to make higher education accessible beyond Chicago, beyond Illinois, beyond the United States of America,” said Derise Tolliver Atta, Chicago program director and an associate professor at SNL. “Our collaboration with Tangaza College in Kenya seeks out African-born adult learners who will be future leaders in their communities and who will apply their learning about leadership and management to the realities of their lives.”

Representatives from DePaul will attend the Dec. 10 graduation ceremony at Tangaza College in Nairobi. Among those attending the ceremony will be Jay Braatz, chief of staff for the Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M., president of DePaul; Cheryl Procter-Rogers, vice president of Public Relations and Communications; Marisa Alicea, SNL dean; Derise Tolliver Atta, Chicago program director and SNL faculty member; the Rev. Patrick Roe, C.S.S.P., principal of Tangaza College; Edel Churu, deputy principal academic of Tangaza; Nyambura Owinyo, assistant Kenya coordinator; and Sister Loretta Brennan, C.S.B., Kenya coordinator of the program at Tangaza. Professor Mary Getui, recently appointed to chair the National AIDS Control Council by the president of Kenya, has been invited to be the commencement speaker. Getui is well-known in education circles and is former dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Kenyatta University.

Established in 1972, SNL is one of the first programs in the nation expressly designed to serve the needs of adult learners balancing work, family and school. It has earned an international reputation for its core-based approach to learning that offers innovative, adult-focused curricula and degree programs. The program at Tangaza College is structured like the Chicago-based SNL program in which each student fulfills 50 competencies, including a service-learning component, senior project and research. One of SNL’s most unique features is that it allows students to receive class credit for prior learning. The students in the Tangaza/DePaul program also have received course credit for prior learning from their life and previous academic experiences.

DePaul received a $480,000 grant from the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to establish this academic partnership with Tangaza College. DePaul University is the largest Catholic university in the nation and the eighth-largest private, not-for-profit university in the United States. A diverse population of 25,072 students attends DePaul’s two Chicago and four suburban campuses.