MIT professor's take after Kogelo visit

By John Oywa

He cuts the figure of an astute diplomat. His greying and well-trimmed beard strikes an uncanny resemblance to US Assistant Secretary of state for Africa, Jonnie Carson.

Apart from those who mistook him for Carson, only a few people recognised Prof Wesley L Harris as he strode into the KCA University grounds in Nairobi last week to receive an Honorary Doctorate degree.

It was not until the KCA University Chancellor, Prof Arthur Eshiwani, finished reading his citation that students and staff gave him a standing ovation as they realised he was not an ordinary VIP.

It dawned on the KCA fraternity and other recipients of honorary doctorates, that among them was a distinguished African American Achiever.

Prof Eshiwani said the Honaris Causa (Doctor of Science) awarded to Prof Harris was in recognition of his work in the space and aviation industry.

Among the first

"He was among the first African-Americans to qualify as an aeronautical engineer in 1964 and later to obtain a PhD in the same discipline," read Prof Eshiwani.

The space scientist who broke the academic glass ceiling during the days when African-Americans faced segregation challenges, went on to make great strides in overcoming racial barriers.

Prof Harris being conferred with an honorary doctorate degree by Prof Arthur Eshiwani, the Chancellor of KCA University.

After being conferred with the honour at KCA, Prof Harris traveled to Siaya, Kogelo, the birthplace of the father to US President Barack Obama, for a personal experience.

"I was humbled. I saw where Obama’s father grew up and I concluded that one don’t need to come from Chicago or any big city to be intelligent. You can be intelligent even when you live in a small village like Kogelo," he said.

As a child in Richmond, Virginia, Harris was intrigued by planes and learnt to build different toy models using balsawood and plastics which he powered using rubber bands.

Study physics

"Initially, I wanted to study physics in college after high school but the university of Virginia did not allow African-Americans to major in that so I settled for aeronautical engineering," he said.

He is among the few African-Americans to overcome hurdles to achieve high academic goals.

"I was often lonely on campus because there were only five or six other African-Americans at the university. Moreover, most facilities were segregated and there were only a few places black students could go to," he said. As one of the first African-Americans to hold senior positions at the prestigious American National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) Harris was indeed a prized guest in Kenya.

Nasa is the agency of the United States, responsible for the public space programmes It is the epicenter of American complex Aeronautical and Astronautical science where shuttles are assembled and sent into space.

In addition to the space programme, it is also responsible for long-term civilian and military aerospace research.

Air movement

While serving at Nasa as an associate administrator for aeronautics in 1979, Harris pioneered the use of computers to solve problems concerning high-speed air movement.

His success in complex scientific ventures paved the way for Nasa to install powerful supercomputers to help monitor the outer space.

He has also been in–charge of several projects at Nasa, including research in technology for a new supersonic transport plane that took the aviation industry by storm.

Harris also directed the National Aero-space plane (Nasp) programme that develops aircrafts than can reach orbital altitudes by themselves.

Honorary degree

Harris, now an Associate provost — an equivalent of a chief academic officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was in Nairobi to receive his honorary degree for his scholarly work and to exploit how Kenyan scientists and students can share the US experience.

He is credited with fighting for the welfare of minority students at MIT where he established the first office of Minority Education in 1975.

He says Kenya has made good strides in aviation and was capable of venturing into complex space technology.

He added: "It can take Kenya only five years to build such a state of the art satellite which it can use to monitor its environment and other space-related issues like meteorology. The only bottleneck is that it will need a developed country such as Russia or Japan to help launch it."

Asked what he thought about Kenya’s aviation industry especially on the training of experts, Harris said: "I see a big opportunity for Kenya in the air transport industry. It is the gateway to Eastern and Central Africa. It just needs to invest more on aerospace management and training of personnel such air traffic controllers."

Student exchange

The 68-year old father of six said he has been discussing possible student exchange programmes between MIT and KCA especially on technology education.

He said he learnt about KCA University through a Kenyan Harvard scholar-Prof Calistus Juma.

"Prof Juma is a colleague. I met him in Washington and he told the KCA University V-C about me, " he said.

Harris has more attachment to Kenya as his eldest daughter, Zelda, has been to Kenya on many occasions to teach law at the University of Nairobi.