Mt. Meru University,         Arusha Tanzania

Mount Meru University began in 1962 as the International Baptist Theological Seminary of East Africa shortly after the first missionaries of the Southern Baptist Convention arrived in this part of Tanzania.  The first 15 students graduated 2 years later and since that time over 400 students from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have graduated, providing key leaders and pastors for the churches of East Africa.  The school is now owned and operated by the Baptist Churches of East Africa and in October 2003 the school gained full university status by the government of Tanzania.  In the last 4 years the school has expanded to include a faculty of Education, a Bachelors of Christian Education, a Bachelor of Business Administration, and majors in Accounting, Management, Marketing and Mathematics.

 The vision for the university is to be a fountain of knowledge and wisdom that produces excellent, God fearing, visionary, skilled, proactive, hardworking and transforming servant leaders.  Mount Meru University presently serves 430 students by anticipates growing to hold 3,000 students by 2020.  In order to have planned growth and to be able to adequately provide quality service to their students and the community Mount Meru University invited EMI EA to help them create a master development plan.   Included in this plan is student housing, a new music school & larger chapel, a new library & academic center, additional staff housing, an amphitheater, increased office space for administrative staff & research professors as well a separate building for their branch services.  The EMI EA team also performed a detailed survey of the campus, analyzed the existing water and waste-water system and provided recommendations for improvements.  

The team was comprised of 3 architects, 4 civil engineers, 1 structural engineer, 1 graphic designer, 1 petroleum engineer and 1 teacher.  Of these people, 5 were short-term volunteers from the USA, 3 were EMI EA interns 2 were long-term volunteers from our office in Uganda and one was staff in the Uganda office.