BGU is a global university where students can study in their own languages! First, it saw the birth of a BGU Spanish program at the master’s level and a BGU Korean program at the doctoral level. Students of both programs graduated this June 1st, 2024. This July, BGU is launching a doctoral program in French for French-speaking African countries, based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, West Africa.

The new cohort will involve 13 students from 4 different countries: Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Tchad, and the DRCongo. They have already met for two city immersions, one in Abidjan and one in Cotonou (Benin) where they have studied God’s perspectives on these cities as well as how to develop their socio-anthropological skills. Some of them are specializing in organizational leadership and others focus on health-related leadership. Their first BGU course will be led by Dr. Jide Olagunju who is bi-lingual (French-English) and will be focusing on conflict resolution. Dr. Olagunju has researched and published extensively on organizational conflict resolution strategies and he is ready to unpack many contextual African case-studies with his students while trying to help them discern biblically-based principles of conflict resolution.

Other instructors will include Dr. Pierre Soro whose expertise is in organizational leadership. Prof. Roger N’Dri brings decades of experience in educational institutional leadership. Prof. Rubin Pohor, a socio-anthropologist whose wisdom and publications are well renown throughout the French-speaking African continent and beyond will also contribute significantly by supervising doctoral dissertations and helping students identify God’s calling for their research.

As BGU develops its academic offerings while ensuring contextual (and not contextualized!) education and research, it continues to strive to support its students to really respond to God’s calling on their lives as an act of worship. God doesn’t expect anything less for his children and it is our joy at BGU to see our students flourish and rejoice as they respond wholeheartedly to His calling on their lives!

Dr. Martine Audéoud

Ph.D Program Director

martine.audeoud@bgu.edu