Wolaita Sodo University

Wolaita Sodo University

ወላይታ ሶዶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ
Motto	ዕውቀትን በተግባር
Motto in English	Knowledge in practice
Type	Public
Established	2007 (2007)
President	Takele Tadesse
Academic staff	~1,630
Students	>35,000 (Fall 2019)
Undergraduates	30,991 (Fall 2019)
Postgraduates	2,690 (Fall 2019)
Location	Wolaita Sodo , South West Ethiopia Peoples' Region , Ethiopia 6°49′44.6″N 37°45′03.5″E
Campus	Urban
Language	English
Colors	Crimson
Website	www.wsu.edu.et
Location in Ethiopia

Wolaita Sodo University (Ge'ez: ወላይታ ሶዶ ዩኒቨርሲቲ) is a public university in Wolaita Sodo, South Ethiopia Regional State, Ethiopia. It is approximately 339 kilometers (210.65 mile) far from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in southwest direction. It is one of the second generation universities of Ethiopia. The foundation stone of the university laid by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The university has three campuses: Gandaba Campus, Otona Campus and Tercha Campus. Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Ethiopian categorized the university under applied institutions.

Wolaita Sodo University has 58 undergraduate programs, 43 postgraduate programs, 6 Doctor of Philosophy programs, and 4 Medical specialty programs.

History

Wolaita Sodo University was established on 24 March 2007 by proclamation. The university started its duty with 16 undergraduate programs and 807 students. Now over 35,000 active students; until 2019 the university has graduated 57,188 students. There are 1,626 Academic, and 3,770 Administrative staff.

Colleges and Schools

List of the colleges and the number of departments

Number	Colleges name	Number of departments
1	College of Medicine and Health Science	11
2	College of Natural and Computational Sciences	9
3	College of Agriculture	14
4	College of Education and Behavioral Studies	04
5	College of Engineering	06
6	College of Science and Humanities	08
7	College of Business and Economics	06

The university has three schools namely, School of Informatics, School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Law.

Community services

The university has been involved in community service activities by designing problem solving projects that can ensure the benefit of the community in various fields and based on questions from the community. One of the 87 community service projects approved in 2019 is the digging of deep water wells in Wolayita Zone, Sodo, Bodit, Gununo and Bele towns.

Community services in Gununo

According to Dr. Mesfin Bibiso, Vice President for Research and Community Service and Associate Deans of Colleges and Schools, experts have proved that the deep well drilling carried out with the support of the community service project is effective and generates 16 liters of water per second, or 1,382,000 liter per day. He said that the previous water supply in the town was 5 liters per second, which is very limited in terms of the city's population, adding that it has been put in place to alleviate the problems of the community.

According to experts, the project, which was implemented in Gununo town on Thursday, 1 October 2020 generates 1,382,000 liters of water per day and will be accessible to more than 130,000 households.

As the university stated its "the project is expected to be implemented in Sodo, Boditi and Bale towns of the zone soon".

Notable alumni

• Professor Takele Tadesse president of the university
• Samuel Urkato, former president of the university
• Senbetie Toma, former president of the university
• Tamirat Motta, former president of the university
• Prof. Tamado Tana, former president of the university

See also

• List of universities and colleges in Ethiopia