The management of Port Harcourt Study Centre, National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN), Port Harcourt, Rivers State, led by Dr. Nnenna Nancy Chukwuma, has underscored its commitment to relentless advocacy with an end to making NOUN a household name in the oil-rich state.
Chukwuma, in her dogged effort to achieve this goal within the period of her administrative tenure, has embarked upon several rebranding initiatives, apart from her consistent advocacy campaigns to MDA’s, security formations, private and religious institutions as well as media organisations, to reposition the centre as a fully visible institution of repute in the state.
The erudite Business Administration scholar has already approached the management of the university for approval to move the main gate of the study centre from the side street where it is at the moment to the main NTA – Choba Road, to boost the visibility of the centre in the area.
Moreover, the director has also mounted the centre’s first ever billboard, which has automatically made the location of the centre very conspicuous. Port Harcourt commuters plying that route are already getting used to an Open University Junction, thus more awareness is created while the visibility of the study centre in particular, and of the university in general, in the state is greatly enhanced.
It is worth remembering that one of the earliest projects the centre director embarked upon in her first fortnight of assumption of office as director of the centre was the aesthetic face-lifting of the centre, by clearing the bushes around the centre and transforming them to an interlocked landscape for the parking of vehicles by students and guests of the centre.
That singular initiative has not only arrested the chaotic traffic situation around the centre whenever there are major events like exams, matriculation and convocation ceremonies, but has also projected the university as a responsible and well managed corporate citizen of Rivers State and the Nigerian nation.
At the moment, one can tell any commercial driver as far as Rumuola, off Aba Road, that he is going to National Open University of Nigeria (or Open University) and would be taken straight to the centre without any miss of direction.
