Professor Ngozi Chuma-Udeh

Ngozi Chuma-Udeh is an educator and a Professor of English. She is an orator, a novelist, a poet, and a dramatist. She holds a double Master’s Degree (M.Ed. in Educational Administration, 1997, and MA in English, 2004). She also holds two Doctorate Degrees, a Ph.D. in Educational Administration (2002), and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature Stress (2010).

Twice an International Award Winner, her first novel, Teachers on Strike, won the West African Literary Award in 2005, and her second novel, Echoes of a New Dawn, won the Association of African Women Writers (AAWW) Masterpiece Award in Senegal (2010).

She has visited 45 Universities outside the country in her academic quest. In 2013, on a special invitation, she attended and delivered a Keynote at a Symposium Celebrating Jorge Luis Borges, held at the University of Bueno Aires in Argentina. She is an External Examiner at National College, Tamil Nadu, India, and Bharathidasan University, Palkalai, Peru. She was appointed the Fiction Editor, Sentinel Literary Quarterly Journals, London, United Kingdom, in 2012, and Editor/Reviewer, PMLA-Journal of the Modern Language Association, MLA, in 2014.

Chuma Udeh Ngozi’s Trends and Issues in Nigerian Literature was cited as a Mainline Text book at the Library of the University of Leeds, London in 2011 and a Recognition and Documentation of Authorship by the Library of Congress Virtual International Authority File: Teachers on Strike (VIAF ID: 187463577) was given in 2012.

Ngozi is fluent in the speaking and writing of the Igbo Language. She has elementary knowledge of Hausa, Yoruba, and Kalabari Nigerian ethnic languages. She speaks French, Chinese, Spanish, and Dutch at UN Level I of language competence.

Ngozi has received numerous National and State Awards and Recognition as an outstanding Literary Artist. Primary among these are the Award and Recognition as one of Nigeria’s most outstanding Literary Artists from His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, GCFR, President Federal Republic of Nigeria in 2013, and the recognition by His Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi, former Governor of her home state, Anambra State, in 2014.

Ngozi belongs to numerous Academic Associations and Literary bodies prominent among which are; the Modern Language Association (MLA), the African Literature Association (ALA), the Pan-African Writers Association, the Nigerian Association for Educational Administration and Planning (NAEAP), the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), and she is a fellow of The Literati Philosophia and the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).

She has served her University, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (formerly Anambra State University) as the Dean of Arts and the University Orator. Ngozi also served as the Head of the Department of English, at Anambra State University for two tenures, Coordinator of General English Studies for two tenures, the Associate Dean of Arts for two tenures, and the Chair of the local Organizing Committee for the Faculty of Arts International Conferences for five years. She has supervised postgraduate students (MA, PhD) both in her University and Internationally.

She is an International External Examiner both in Educational Administration and in English Studies. She has been deeply involved in various curriculum planning efforts at her University and in the Educational Sector of her home State. She has participated in the development of Education programmes and has helped in managing, implementing, monitoring, evaluating, and reporting the progress of education programmes in the Anambra State Post Primary School Board as a Principal Officer/ Supervisor. She has designed and implemented strategies for improving learning, and learning outcomes for children in the rural areas of her home State.

Ngozi is a girl-child initiative activist and proponent of zero illiteracy for Nigerian women. She has carried out extensive research on the development, empowerment, and protection of women and girl children, especially in war situations. She is also a strong apostle of Arts for the society’s sake, and she is of the belief that arts and literary dialogues are the panacea for remedying the world’s chaotic experiences.

She has Thirty (30) book publications (including Novels, Children’s Fiction, Textbooks, Collection of Poems and Dramas). She has to her academic credit One hundred and five (105) publications in Abstracted Journals. She has attended over ninety-five (95) Conferences (National and International), with ninety (90) papers delivered both internationally and nationally.

As an outstanding public speaker, she has delivered about 25 Keynotes at both National and International Conferences. She has been specially invited to about twelve States in the Federal Republic of Nigeria to deliver academic lectures in Annual Literary Colloquiums. She lost her husband in 2020 and is blessed with children and grandchildren. Her dream projects are: “Bringing back the book culture for life and for posterity,” and “Getting Girl-Children off the Street.”