So I am originally from Ghana.
I did my undergrad studies of the University of Ghana
and that is in the capital, and during my undergrad years
I spent a year abroad in what was the Soviet Union at the time,
at the time that it was going through significant change.
You know, folks remember glasnost and perestroika,
and that was at the height of that and so I was able to see the old
and the new. It was an opportunity also to mingle with a lot of students from
around the world, because the school that I stayed at, that I studied at, has
students from pretty much every part of the world there.
And from my undergrad days, I pursued graduate work in communications at the
University of Ghana again before moving to the University of British Columbia to
study in political science, ending up at Queen's, where I did my PhD. But going
back to my days in Ghana, I grew up in a very diverse community in the city.
It was what would be considered a low-income environment. But it was a very
vibrant community where you learned a lot about what it means to be there for
one another, to support one another. I understood that people could work hard
but may not necessarily get a lift in life. And so the understanding of
hard work, community support for one another and the ethos of social justice,
which is something that has lived with me for through my life, came
from that experience. And so that, that gives you some sense
of that background.
That is one of the easiest questions that I get asked because my mom
has been my compass for a whole lot of things in my life. She never
had a formal education, but just strongly believed in education and supported all the
children through that. She, for me, epitomizes hard work and commitment to
community. She supported all of us,
I have six siblings, but that was not the size of the family, because
pretty much every kid in the neighbourhood came to our home, and I
had a lot of cousins whose formative years were in our home so,
that experience for me was was critical to who I am in terms of the values that
I hold. People knew her for very strong ethical principles. She spoke her
mind, she instilled in us a responsibility for others. And I remember
as a kid, people would come home and there would be stuff that we have it in the
house and she'll give them out to people and we're like, "Hey, why?" But she
always, we always had, for example, one of the things that I remember was she
saying, we always had leftover food, and because she's say, you never know
who might show up in the middle of the night and need that. I remember
a colleague that I met here in Canada who was telling about his experience in
Ghana and I never knew he grew up in that neighbourhood and he was telling me about
how his uncle, whom he visited during the holidays, would go to my mom's place
and have you borrow food, because she sold different kinds of
foodstuffs and so on. And that is the story that we hear quite a lot
about, and so I think in terms of what my core values are about openness,
responsibility for others, freedom of expression, because she did speak her mind a lot,
all of those things came from there, and the principle of fairness was
another thing that she stood for, and she would challenge people on those kinds
of things. And so, for me, when I look up to somebody who
is formative in terms of my own ideas, that someone is her. So she
continues to be a very strong influence on that, even though she passed
quite a while ago, continues to define who I am.
My research straddles, I would say, four broad areas, which are
interconnected, and I'll explain that in a bit. And so a significant part of my work
has been on media and politics in Africa, and again it comes from this idea that
people need to be able to speak their mind, and it's only through a confluence
of ideas that you're able to move society forward. And so in an environment
where media freedoms were constrained, I had a particular interest in
exploring how those were inimical to development in different ways, but also
beginning to open our vistas to how people might see the world through those
those mechanisms, so it's something that has always been of interest to me. So that is
one piece of the work that I do. I also then work on the democratization
in new technologies and how those are being appropriated to advance democracy
and citizen engagement. Again, in the African context, because my regional
focus is Africa, so I tend to do a lot of my work in that context. And then, a
third area would be on diasporas and transnational citizenship, so, again,
issues around voice and how diaspora communities are able to still connect
with their places of residence, but also with place of origin, and how that
transnational interaction influences politics both here, and the focuses on
mainly African-Canadians, but also influences their place of origin.
And then the final area that I've also been active in which, again, intersects
diaspora, technology and, in this case, higher education, is looking at how
diaspora communities can advance education in Africa, particularly in a
context where there is brain drain, and so I'm an example of somebody who was
supported by taxpayer dollars in Ghana and has left, and so I feel a
commitment to give back, and I've led initiatives that mobilize the
community of academics and diaspora to see how we can give back to those places
and help them build capacity. So in a nutshell, those are my broad
areas of scholarship, and I continue to look at how they intersect
in different ways.
It's important that academic leaders, that we operate from a principle of
service, and I've always seen that as my motivation for engaging in academia and
academic administration in particular. And so I see myself as
facilitating opportunities for people to be great at what they do, because
my colleagues from staff, students and faculty are folks with a huge dose of
potential. And my responsibility is to make sure they can unleash that in
ways that are beneficial to society, but also brings them a sense of
fulfillment. And so I think that in doing that, I've tried to work with
colleagues to have them understand that I'm there for them, that I'm at their
service, in a way, I look at myself as a servant leader, and so that
principle has guided the way I do things, and I've found that if you're
open, transparent and engaging, people latch on to that, because there's a sense
of inclusion, there's a sense of fulfillment, that you're participating and defining
your own world, as it were. So that has been critical to me in terms of
how you mobilize the community for common purpose.
There are variety reasons why having an inclusive community is important. We
feed off one another, we bring different strengths, we enrich who we are as humans,
but but also as a community. I think if you live in an isolated world where you
don't tap into the potentials that others have, you effectively erode your
own potential. So I see no downside to be inclusive I think that
having people participate in decision-making processes that impact
them only makes the proposals that we put forward better. If you've got
people invested in that, they'll stand behind it, they'll push it, they'll
become the champions of these efforts. So I think it's absolutely critical that we
look at it from that perspective in terms of the benefits that come, not to
just as its individuals, but to our community as well. And so
I sometimes take issue where people talk about equity seeking people.
I think that people are equity deserving, and that we have to be able to create
room for those folks to be able to engage in the process. And when we do
that, we expand our horizons, we enrich our own experiences and we're
able to open pathways for people who would otherwise not have the opportunity
to be part of our community.
Pleasantly feel reinforced in my perception of this campus from a distance,
because my attraction to this place came from a distance. And so being able
to immerse myself in this environment over the last couple of days and having
a reinforcement of the beliefs and the perception that I have
has been really refreshing. Because, as you can imagine, it would be really scary to come
here and realize that there's a disconnect between what I thought and
what I experienced. I found this campus to be very engaging, just
cast your eyes and you see. We're talking to really about inclusivity and
diversity and it's just manifest in this environment. Talking to colleagues,
I feel a passion here to be able to make a contribution that goes beyond those
campus and looking at this campus as boundless and borderless and reaching
out to our community both here and beyond. That is the
sense I get. And so, for me, it's a good feeling to my
desire to be able to be part of this community and be able to make my
contributions, because there's already a foundation of people who are committed
to these significant values that I hold dear. So, good good impression, I just hope
that they're not just first impression but that they're sustained over time,
and I'm looking forward to working with the community.
I hope that people see me as open, approachable, that
they're able to speak their minds. I encourage them to be critical of my
ideas just as I would be of them, because I think that it is through those open,
candid conversations that we're able to make this intellectual community what it
is meant to be. So I hope people don't see a distance between me and them. As
much as possible, I try to do my part to make sure that distance will shrink as
much as humanly possible, and I hope that people will see that and be able to
engage with me in the same spirit. I'm all for accountability,
I think that as leaders we have a responsibility to the community that we
serve to be answerable. I think that every decision I make has to be
justified to the people that I serve and I hope people will understand that and
feel free to be able to ask me to account for my stewardship here.
I believe in respecting one another in this community, I listen and
I respect and hope that people would do that. I think if we engage
collaboratively and fruitfully, with respect, that we all end up in a better
place. So those would be some broad things that I'll throw out
and hope that they reflect what others might think about me as well, but
it's always a difficult thing. My belief is that you prove you to people
by your actions and that I hope that the community itself will form an
impression of me as they begin to know me better.