USIU-A CHRONICLES

                               THE HISTORY

The university was established in 1969 as the Nairobi Campus of United States International University (USIU), a San Diego -based institution. In 1999, the United States International University, Nairobi Campus, established itself as a separate university under its new name: USIU Africa. In 2001, USIU merged with the California School of Professional Psychology (CSPP) to form Alliant International University.
Over 130 nationalities are represented among the student population undertaking 24 undergraduate, graduate and doctoral programs at USIU Africa. The university has an alumni population in excess of 140,000.

 
The USIU-A journey started way back in 1927 when Leland Ghent Stanford chartered a private graduate institution called Balboa Law College in San Diego (USA), which later changed its name to Balboa University in 1945. In 1952, Balboa University again changed its name to California Western University, and a year later Dr. William C. Rust became the university’s president.
In 1968, he relocated the university’s undergraduate and graduate programs to Scripps Ranch in northeast San Diego, then formally changed the university’s name to United States International University (USIU)

Dr. Rust had a vision of international education that would see students and faculty share and embrace knowledge around the world. In his quest to establish an African campus, Dr. Rust traversed Africa in Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya before deciding to settle in Nairobi.  His journey was not an easy one. He faced a myriad of challenges including convincing the Kenyan government that an American education was just as good as a British one. He also had to convince the U.S. accrediting body (Western Association of Schools and Colleges – WASC) of the viability of an international multi-campus system.

Dr. William C.Rust

The United States International University – Africa was registered under the Companies Act (Cap 486) on 18^th September, 1969. In 1970, he signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Kenya that allowed him to offer business programs and any other degree programs not being offered by the public universities.
In 1977, the university began to offer accredited full degree programs in Business Administration, Psychology and International Relations. Unlike earlier graduating classes that completed their degree requirements in San Diego, the first students to graduate from the Nairobi campus did so in 1979 (USIU-A, n.d.)

Dr. Lillian K. Beam started her tenure in 1984 and was at the helm of the university for 10 years. Her 10 year term coincided with major shifts in the regulation of higher education in Kenya. To comply with the new quality assurance standards enshrined in the Universities Act of 1986 and the rules and regulations that followed in 1989, Dr. Beam purchased 20 acres of property in Kasarani, Nairobi where the campus moved to in 1991. The temporary buildings built then to accommodate current students, were completed in time to accommodate a sudden influx of students from Kenyan public universities, desperately seeking to complete their college education, following a prolonged faculty labor dispute in Kenyan public universities. The new students, as well as many faculty members from public universities stayed on, forming the foundation for USIU-Africa’s fledging new campus.
In 1994, the then USIU Coordinator of international campuses, Dr. Freida A. Brown took over from the retiring Dr. Beam as Executive Director. She moved to Nairobi to find a campus with mounting debts, almost no fulltime faculty and no Charter.

Through her prudential financial management, Dr. Brown solved the debt crisis and in just 4 years the university’s finances has recovered enough to purchase an additional 60 acres, thereby meeting the minimum land requirement for accreditation by the Commission for Higher Education.
A year later, the university was granted its Charter by then Kenyan President H.E. President Daniel T. Arap Moi, at a ceremony that also featured the inauguration of Dr. Brown as USIU-Africa’s first Vice Chancellor. (USIU-A, n.d.)

Dr. Freida A. Brown