Prof. Rei Towet Kesis has been named the founding Principal and Vice Chancellor of Kamagambo University, the institution that was today awarded a Letter of Interim Authority by President William Ruto at Kisumu State Lodge, becoming Kenya's 90th university.
Prof. Kesis is an ordained Pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, a theologian, educationist, author and long-serving administrator in Adventist institutions of higher learning.
He previously served as an Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Eastern Africa, Baraton (UEAB), the mother university of the Adventist Church in East Africa. At Baraton, he rose through several administrative positions, including University Chaplain, Dean of Men, Associate Chaplain, Special Assistant to the Vice Chancellor, and later Deputy Vice Chancellor.
Throughout his career, his focus has remained on simplifying complex theological concepts for ordinary church members. He says his mission in life is to make the Word of God understandable to even the least educated and the youngest child, a philosophy that has shaped his teaching, preaching and writing.
Prof. Kesis is an award-winning author of several inspirational books, including Nuggets to Live By and Building Blocks for Life Book 1. He is also a prolific blogger through his website, reikesis.com, and a content creator on YouTube, TikTok and other platforms, where he shares sermons and religious teachings.
Before his appointment to Kamagambo, he served as the Founding Principal of the proposed Adventist University of Kenya – Kamagambo Campus, then a constituent college of UEAB. He has been instrumental in steering the institution from a diploma college offering Teacher Training, Theology and Business courses into a fully fledged university.
Under his leadership, Kamagambo, established in 1912 by SDA missionaries as a small mission school, has grown to become the third Adventist university in Kenya, after Baraton and the Adventist University of Africa in Ongata Rongai.
Colleagues describe Prof. Kesis as a humble, soft-spoken but firm administrator who enjoys grey colours, travelling, eating chapati and, above all, teaching. He holds a strong passion for entrepreneurship, which he has made a defining feature of the new university's first academic programmes.
He is married and a family man, and continues to serve as an endorsed chaplain of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
By Enock Okong’o
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