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Life at EmbuCampus life
A choir that beat thirty universities on a national stage. A cultural week that filled the grounds. Hostels with hot water and a warden who answers at two in the morning. The part of a degree that does not appear on the transcript.
Mr. and Miss UoEm 2025/2026 at Cultural Festival Week. Photograph from The Flashlight, Issue No. 14.
The year students actually had
Reported by the Office of the Dean of Students for the 2025/2026 academic year.
Four firsts on the national stage
The Students’ Choir, the Drama and Poetry team and the Staff Choir travelled to Kibabii University in Bungoma for the 98th Kenya Music Festival, held from 1 to 14 August 2026. The festival runs more than six hundred competitive categories and is among the largest of its kind in East and Central Africa.
The Drama Team took four first places, in German Choral, Chant in an African Language, Choral Verse in African Languages and Kiswahili Choral. The poetry team added three second places. They were competing against more than thirty public and private universities.
CULFEST, 23 to 28 February
Cultural Festival Week ran under the theme “Promoting talent through innovation for cultural integration and socio-economic empowerment”. The week drew Willis Raburu-Bazuu, Dyana CoDs, Toxic Lyricall, Iyani and the gospel artist Moji Short Baba.
It closed with the crowning of Mr. Manyura Emmanuel and Ms. Lorna Nyambura as Mr. and Miss UoEm 2025/2026, alongside Mr. Samson Kiema Nduni and Ms. Elizabeth Njeri Kabubii as Mr. and Miss Disability.
Where students sleep, eat and get help
Rooms for both men and women, with free wifi, hot water and a TV room in each hostel. Spaces are booked online, first come first served, so no one has to queue for a bed. CCTV covers the hostel area, guards patrol it, and the Accommodation office runs twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Counselling services run alongside the Peer Counsellors’ Training and Support programme, so help is available from staff and from fellow students.
Rev. Dr. Mary Nkari serves as University Chaplain and Fr. Joseph Kirimi as Catholic Chaplain.
A health unit on campus, with clinical placements and community health clinics run through the School of Nursing.
From the Nursing Club to sports, music, drama and professional associations. Clubs run mentorship, leadership and career development alongside their own activities.
Students elect their own leadership each year, and the Office of the Dean of Students runs empowerment programmes for both men and women.
The Office of the Dean of Students
The Office is responsible for welfare, clubs and societies, the Cultural Festival, student elections and the empowerment programmes. It also administers the Student Support Fund window for students in financial difficulty — a separate scheme from the University’s Endowment Fund, which invests permanent capital and spends only the return.
The 2025/2026 window opened on 5 December 2025 and closed on 19 January 2026. It supported 959 students with KES 8,178,825, with a further KES 657,750 going to meal support.
Note for the Dean of Students. This page is built from The Flashlight, Issue No. 14, because the live estate has no campus-life page at all. Three things are missing and would each take an afternoon to supply: a directory of registered clubs and societies with a contact for each, an events calendar so CULFEST and the music festival are announced rather than reported afterwards, and the current hostel fee and capacity figures.