President Offices

Wolaita Sodo University (WSU) was officially established with its current status and autonomy on March 2017. It is located approximately 339 km far from Addis Ababa. In 2020 Ministry of Science and Higher Education of Ethiopian categorized the university under applied universities. The university started its duty with 16 undergraduate programs and 807 students. Now over 35,602 active students; until 2021 the university has graduated more than 60,000 students. There are more than 1,486 academic staff, 154 technical assistants, 4,060 administrative staff, and 1464 clinical staff. The university has three campuses: Gandaba Campus, Otona Campus and Dawuro Tercha Campus. Currently, the University owns 58 undergraduate programs, 43 postgraduate programs, 6 Doctor of Philosophy programs, and 4 Medical specialty programs. Our 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 Wolaita Zone, Sodo, Boditi, Gununo and Bele towns. Furthermore, our University has established two institutes, namely, Institute of Omotic Cultures and Languages Research (IOCLR), and Institute of Development, and Policy Research (IDPR). Besides, WSU has involved in divergent mainstreaming research and community services and gained remarkable achievements. Accordingly, to create a platform for practical teaching-learning process and conducting inter and multi-disciplinary research, WSU has established six research centers, that is, Gandaba Research Center, Abala Research Center, Kokatie Research Centre, Boloso Bombe Research Centre, Bilate Research Centre, and Kechi Research Centre to enable the university to facilitate the economic transformation of the nations and work towards knowledge-based economy. So far, the university has published nine proceeding and hosted nine successive research conferences that points towards sustainable socio-economic development of the country.

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 liters per day. The previous water supply in the town was 5 liters per second, which is very limited in terms of the city’s population; it has been put in place to alleviate the problems of the community. According to the experts, the project, which was implemented in Gununo town on 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 “the project is expected to be implemented in Sodo, Boditi and Bale towns of the zone soon”.