Former UoN Chancellor Dr. Vijoo Rattansi is dead

Dr. Rattansi was the first female UoN chancellor, serving from 2013 to 2023, leaving a legacy of academic excellence.

In a statement on Thursday, UoN Chancellor Prof. Dr. Patrick Verkooijen mourned Dr. Rattansi as a trailblazer who led the University with unmatched dedication, wisdom, and grace.

"On behalf of the entire  University of Nairobi fraternity, I offer my deepest and most heartfelt condolences to the Rattansi family, friends, and loved ones during this time of immense grief," Chancellor Dr. Verkooijen said.

"Her firm and transformative leadership laid a robust foundation for academic excellence and global engagement that we continue to build upon today."

Dr. Verkooijen added that she exhibited an unmatched passion for expanding access to higher education for brilliant but financially disadvantaged students, providing scholarships and mentorship programmes.

"The thousands of individuals whose lives she touched, whose dreams she financed, and whose futures she secured bear living testimony to a life beautifully lived in service to humanity," he said.

"Kenya and indeed the University of Nairobi has lost a distinguished education advocate, an exceptional leader, and a compassionate mother to the less fortunate."

She was awarded an honorary doctorate by Moi University in recognition of her efforts in promoting higher education in the country and was awarded the Order of the Grand Warrior (OGW) in 2006.

Dr. Rattansi also served as the Chairperson of the UoN Foundation, the Rattansi Educational Trust, the Daisy Eye Cancer Fund, and other charitable organisations.

She was born in Zanzibar in 1948, where she undertook her early-life and high school education. 

She once intimated that her passion to study medicine in the United States was cut short by the Zanzibar revolution in 1964, forcing her to move to Kenya, where her elder sister lived.