Pictures of the Alemayya Campus.  

Forthcoming: Article on "Alemayya (town, college)" in Siegbert Uhlig, ed., Encyclopaedia Aethiopica (Hamburg: Universitat Hamburg, 2001).

On 16 May 1952 an agreement was signed between the United States Technical Cooperation Administration (the "Point Four" program) and Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (now Oklahoma State University) to give assistance to the government of Ethiopia in furthering economic development and in establishing and operating a college of agriculture. The Imperial Ethiopian College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts, modeled upon the land grant college system of the U.S., was built in Harar province near the village then known as "Haramaya" upon a 1,150 acre site granted to the college by Emperor Haile Selassie. The campus, located just off the main road between Dire Dawa and Harar, 210 miles east of Addis Ababa, sits on a long sloping hillside that falls from an altitude of 6,500 feet to a broad valley below. Upon his first visit to the site, the Emperor was so impressed with the location that he changed the name of the village and surrounding area to "Alemaya" (the place from which the world may be viewed). Official dedication ceremonies for the college were held on 16 January 1958 when the Emperor paid tribute to the first class of graduates. The college originally was responsible for agricultural instruction, research and extension on a national basis. In 1961, the college became part of Haile Selassie I University (now Addis Ababa University) under the Ministry of Education, but responsibility for national agricultural extension remained with the Ministry of Agriculture. The college continued to receive major institutional development assistance from Oklahoma State University under contract with U.S. Agency for International Development until 1968 the OSU technical assistance program was terminated. During the 1970s, the college was considered a showplace and a center of internationally recognized education and research excellence. In 1984 the college became an autonomous university, Alemaya University of Agriculture. Since its establishment AUA has granted 5,713 B.Sc. degrees, 302 M.Sc. degrees, and 2,982 Diplomas.

Lit.: JERRY GILL, A History of International Programs at Oklahoma State University (OSU, Stillwater, OK 1991). Oklahoma State University in Ethiopia, Terminal Report 1952- 1968 (Stillwater, OK 1969).