Stephen & Peggy Noll

Steve’s ministry as Vice Chancellor of Uganda Christian University in Mukono, Uganda, is to head the Anglican Church of Uganda’s major institution of higher learning. A significant achievement occurred in May 2004 when UCU became the first private university to be granted a charter by the Government of Uganda.

The Nolls came to Uganda in September 2000 at the invitation of the Archbishop of the Church of Uganda and the University Council for Steve to become the first Vice Chancellor. UCU was opened in 1997 and grew out of Bishop Tucker Theological College, the major Anglican seminary in the country, founded in 1913.

The student population of UCU has grown from 120 to 7000 in seven years, and we have added a second campus with 1000 students in Kabale, western Uganda. The University offers degree programs in more than twenty subjects in six faculties; arts, social sciences, law, business, education, and science and technology. In theology and several other fields it also offers a Masters degree. In 2008, it introduced a cooperative Doctor of Ministry degree with Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA.

As Vice Chancellor, Steve is the chief executive officer of the University, equivalent in the U.S. to a college president; the Chancellor is an honorary position held by the Archbishop, Henry Luke Orombi. Steve’s genuinely Christian university, integrating faith and learning in the classroom as well as offering lively worship and fellowship and a safe moral and physical environment for the students.

Peggy came in a supporting role but has developed a fully ministry consisting primarily of hospitality, communication with supporters, and some teaching in the English department. Since arriving, she has also started a staff wives’ and an international women’s Bible study fellowship. Since 2003, their daughter and husband Mark have lived nearby, with three grandchildren. Mark is director of the Uganda Studies Program, which brings students from United States Christian colleges for a semester abroad experience. Peggy writes an informative weekly “Perspective” on life in Uganda for the Nolls’ weekly listserve. In 2006, she collected some of these perspectives and made them into a book entitled With the Eyes of the Heart.

(Left: Graduation 2008, Archbishops Henry Orombi & Mouneer Anis greet first Ethiopian Graduates)

Peggy Comments: We got involved in this ministry through Steve’s teaching for 21 years and helping to found the Stanway Institute for World Mission at Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA. In addition, his membership on the board of the American Anglican Council involved him in global Anglican meetings, including a consultation held in Dallas and an assisting role with the AAC at the Lambeth Conference, where he met and got to know a number of Ugandan bishops. They grew to respect his role in the American Episcopal Church and knew he was theologically orthodox. When the Archbishop of Uganda visited the US he had a meal at our house with other Trinity staff and students, and that initial personal contact along with Steve’s reputation eventually led to the invitation. We had not been planning to leave Trinity, or the US, but felt God’s call when the invitation to come to UCU was issued. We discussed the possibility of our being sponsored by Global Teams as missionaries. We attended the Horizons mission training in Bakersfield the summer before we moved to Uganda. 

UCU is becoming a center for mission thinking and training. Over the years, we have had several Global Teams missionaries on staff as well as a number of other missionaries. In 2003, UCU launched the Global South Institute for Mission, Leadership, and Public Policy. Each year the University hosts a “Mission and Ministry Conference” through which students are invited to consider a call to ordained ministry or mission work.

The challenges are great and include infrastructure needs (dorms, clean water system, classrooms, science labs…), long term planning, and short-term crises (no water one week, no power the next, or phone the following week…). Steve feels the burden of the money needed for capital projects. When he was first appointed, he founded Uganda Christian University Partners in the US with the sole purpose of raising funds and other resources for the University. He was President of that organization until February 2002, when Mrs. Diane Stanton came to fill that position, and moved the office to Dallas. Trying to access government and NGO grants continues to be something he feels we need to do, but he has not yet had success in gaining the large amounts of money needed. Uganda Partners raises over 200 scholarships per year and has accessed major grants through USAID totaling over a million dollars. At present, the University along with Uganda Partners is seeking to raise about $5 million for a central library named after the original donor of the land, Hamu Mukasa.

Steve made an initial 5-year commitment as Vice Chancellor. In June 2004 he accepted a unanimous call by the University Council and invitation by the Archbishop of Uganda for a second 5-year term that will end in August 2010.

Left: An architects rendering of propsed UCU Ham Mukasa Library