Meet Prof Siphila Wanjiku, the first female Dean of Engineering, breaking career barriers

 How are you warming up to this new position?
I realised this position is not for myself but for others to see that anything is possible. It’s a different office but it is not anything that is too much out of the way of what I have done before.
The dean position is the only position at the university that is elective, for everything else you are appointed.
I never thought I’d be interested in being a dean one day. I was just happy going to class and teaching. And since I had been a chairperson before, and I had experienced the other side of administration work at the university. When the position was declared vacant, I wasn’t aware. It is one of my colleagues who asked me if I would consider it.
I decided to ask my husband because that’s the person I know best, if he says I forget it then I would not go ahead. When I told him he said, ‘why not’, and he gave me some cash for campaigning.

You are such a highly accomplished scholar…Where was this academic appetite cultivated from?
I wouldn’t say it came from home because I came from a well-educated family, my parents are also educated, and they were quite influential although the direction they intended to push was more in medicine. What inspired me was my then mathematics teacher. She was a young Indian lady. She used to carry herself in a very admirable manner. She was very neat and smart. She also used to teach us chemistry.
I did very well in my A levels, so I had a choice. My journey began when I joined a civil engineering course. At that time, it was very competitive, you had to have gotten straight As to do the course.

Why engineering and not medicine as your parents wanted?
Between Maths and Biology, I knew mathematics was easier. You know engineering is an applied science career therefore one needs to have a passion for mathematics, physics and chemistry.
I have enjoyed teaching engineering since 1996 and doing research work. My area of expertise is in building structures, design and specifically in cement paste of materials in the Department of Civil and Construction Engineering.
The secret of excelling is in loving what you do.
When I joined the Civil Engineering department, I was the only female. I looked at it like a double-edged situation; it was either going to discourage or help me. I got a lot of support which became an advantage, if anything, being the only female, I was the favoured one, making it easier for me. I got jobs because people were curious to know if I could do it. So, I took advantage of that to build my career and advance in my training. I think I have gone to all the training I was able to, both management and professional.

 Were there hiccups in the career journey?

Of course, yes! Soon after I graduated, I got married which became another dynamic. Good thing, that the person I got married to was also very professional. He is a doctor and very strict when it comes to professionalism. My husband has always supported me.
There are also the standards set for us as women in male-dominated fields; the standards which are set not consciously but we are expected to perform very high. For you to come out and be seen, you must be exemplary for you to be acceptable.

Motherhood, being a wife, engineer, professor and now dean are many balls that you ought to juggle at once. How did you do it?

When I got married and got children, that it the one time that slowed me down because I had to bring them up. But I still pursued my Master’s degree abroad, which I travelled with my two children. It made me learn to do a lot of multi-tasking by having fellow students come help with the children because I could not leave them by themselves since they were too young.
As a career woman, you realise you can do very many unrelated things at the same time. I am a wife, a mother, a mother-in-law, a grandmother, and a dean. Niko sawa [I’m okay]. Somehow I am able to do all these things, it’s just a matter of planning.

 Of these, which ranks high on the priority list?

I have been able to push my career and also my family. My children are professionals. Being able to balance these two for me is major. Something we were taught when I was young during our days was that women are not able to manage success. I had to be very careful because I would rather have a stable family if asked to choose between the two. Luckily, I have been able to have a steady family and also a career and my family can look up to me with admiration.

 The children, what career paths did they take?

They chose the medical path like their father.

 How did that make you feel?

(Laughs) I had to ask them why they did not think about engineering. One did dentistry and the other did surgery. My son was shocked that I was able to do all that and still be present for family duties. That challenged him to marry an engineer which he did.
They did not realise that I too a career working at a school. Women, sometimes we are obscured, our career is not the one that people see when they come home. But for career men, everyone would know about their career, but not for Mommy because she is always there, always present.

What do you do outside your family and office?
Unfortunately, what I do is quite related to my office roles. I am a real estate developer and I run a consultancy firm and a landlady as well. A bit of farming because I am a small-scale coffee farmer upcountry, and I also write books. But these other things like cooking, aah....that one I never developed too well. I can cook well but I would not say that it is a hobby neither do I do golf. I just do health walks. I also like a lot of innovation and being up to speed with modern technology.

Modern technology?

I have a YouTube channel called Education Without Borders by Wanjiku the Engineer where I save my educational things.  For instance, if I go to a site and find there is a challenge, I save that and try to seek the solution. Also, I realised there is a gap because there is a lot of stuff that I get online sometimes it's not the best. I have grandchildren when they pick up my phone they know exactly where apps are but what is it that they are going to see? That motivated me to have an educational channel so that when somebody is online, they have a choice to learn something authentic. A lot can be done with technology.

 With decades of experience, how can you define success?

Success is not a destination; it is a daily thing. My principle is that every day when I wake up, I do the best of my ability.  If I can do it today, then I am sure tomorrow it will be better. To me having strategies for your achievement is part of the success journey.

 What advice would you give a young woman looking to achieve what you have done?

Anybody who wants to progress should be strategic and very deliberate don’t just sit and waste a lot of time complaining, just be strategic and you will be surprised at the opportunities that are there.

What will you do in retirement?

After three years of dean tenure, I will retire but only from my academic field.
I still cannot believe that I have been here for this long. When I joined the university, I thought that I would retire 15 years ago but again you evaluate yourself and see you have potential. I already have another private office that is running and waiting for me. It is much better than this and I am not bragging. {Laughs}

So, when will you rest?

When my body tells me to. The good thing with engineering is that it is not a manual thing even if I am at home I can still manage it. Retirement for me will mean changing from one environment to another. Even then there are things you can still do at an old stage.

Looking back, would you have done it differently?

No! Whatever opportunity I have had, I took full advantage and did whatever I could to the very best.
 

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