ABSTRACT
This is an attempt to state the aims of a new university of unorthodox design, and to assess, after only six years, some of its intended and unintended effects on the society which created it. The account is written by the first member of the university to be appointed, who still has responsibility for it. An objective statement is therefore not to be expected, but some others of the original staff (here called the primers) have had an opportunity to exercise on it their established skill in checking egotism, complacency and self-deception. It remains, however, an account written by a foreigner. It is therefore followed by a comment from a Malawian colleague who did not know the university in its first years but has recently worked closely with the Vice-Chancellor and has seen something of the institution as a whole. He writes as one of those affected by the changes he is helping to make, and he too, though he writes personally, has consulted his contemporaries and colleagues.
