A Poem for the University of Liberia
By Dr. J. Kerkula Foeday
My Weekly Poetic Reflection, Issue 18, Tuesday, July 21, 2026
The true measure of leadership is not defeating opposition, but preserving the institution that must outlive all of us.
Universities do not collapse in a single day.
They erode
One conversation abandoned,
One grievance dismissed,
One relationship broken at a time.
Long before the walls crack,
Trust has already begun to crumble.
Today, the classrooms are quieter,
Not because knowledge has surrendered,
But because voices have reached the edge of exhaustion.
The chalk still remembers
The hands that wrote hope upon the board.
The libraries still guard
The dreams of generations.
The old trees still stand
Where young minds first learned
That ideas are stronger than fear.
Yet something deeper walks these corridors …
Not merely disagreement,
But the temptation to mistake division for leadership.
History knows this strategy.
When persuasion becomes difficult,
Find a fault line.
When unity becomes inconvenient,
Reward separation.
When questions refuse to disappear,
Change the audience.
It is an old tactic.
Older than governments.
Older than republics.
Older than universities themselves.
Its promise has always sounded the same:
Divide them, and they will become easier to govern.
Its ending has always been the same:
Everyone loses.
A university is not its president alone.
Nor its faculty.
Nor its support staff.
Nor its students.
Nor the adjunct lecturer called only when needed.
It is the fragile covenant
Binding them together
Around a single purpose …
To pursue truth,
To cultivate wisdom,
And to prepare tomorrow’s generation.
Break that covenant,
And every victory becomes an illusion.
What triumph is it
To win an argument
While the institution itself
Learns to distrust its own people?
What celebration survives
When colleagues become opponents,
Students become instruments,
And dialogue becomes another casualty?
There are victories history refuses to applaud.
Victories that leave behind
Empty classrooms,
Fractured friendships,
Wounded reputations,
And a generation taught
That power matters more than principle.
The University deserves better.
Not because it is perfect;
It has never been.
But because imperfect institutions are repaired
By courage, not calculation;
By listening, not manipulation;
By difficult conversations,
not convenient divisions.
Every administration is temporary.
Every strike will one day end.
Every office will eventually belong to someone else.
But the University,
If we are faithful,
Must remain.
Long after names fade from official letterheads,
Long after speeches are forgotten,
Long after today’s headlines become tomorrow’s archives,
The University must still be standing,
Welcoming another generation
Whose only expectation is to learn.