Mary Kizito built her own paradise

NAIROBI: Having headed Daystar University's communication department since the late 1980s, students and practitioners of journalism and mass communication in Africa had in many ways come to regard Ms Mary Kizito as an institution in the field.

News of her death last week therefore, came as a shock to many beyond the university. My first interaction with her was when, in August 1999, I joined her department as a student. She pointed out that her unit ran a student newspaper – Involvement – and that she expected each one of us to get busy on it, differences in specialisation notwithstanding.