THE Catholic Church has appointed Canadian-based Prof. Charles Olweny, 62, vice-chancellor of Uganda Martyrs University (UMU), Nkozi.
Mbarara Archbishop Paul Bakyenga, the UMU chancellor, last week announced that Olweny would replace Prof. Michel Lejeune, who retires on September 1.
A Belgian priest, Lejeune is one of the founders of the university that opened in 1993, as a venture of the 19 Catholic dioceses in Uganda. The university is located in Nkozi Parish, in the Archdiocese of Kampala.
Bakyenga, also the chairman of the Uganda Episcopal Conference, said Olweny was currently teaching at the University of Manitoba, Canada.
In a statement by the UMU publicist, Joseph Sengooba, Bakyenga said Olweny is a medical oncologist at St. Boniface General Hospital and the Cancer Care in Manitoba.
He is also a site coordinator at the Section of Hematology/Oncology at Cancer Care and an associate staff at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Olweny is a former director of the Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago; a medical professor of medicine at Makerere University; and World Health Organisation (WHO) visiting consultant at the Tropical Diseases Research Centre in Ndola, Zambia.
He was also once a visiting professor of medicine at the University of Zambia; a WHO visiting professor of medicine at the University of Zimbabwe; a WHO consultant to the government of Malawi and a Cancer Control Programme senior director for medical oncology at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia.
Married with five children, Olweny has been a clinical professor at the Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Adelaide and WHO co-director for Collaborating Centre for Quality of Life in Cancer Care, Canada.
UMU students come from all parts of Africa, Canada, The Netherlands, Austria and Slovenia, Ssengooba said, adding that Olweny will boost Nkozi’s international stature.
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Nkozi gets new boss
