REPORT FROM AFRICA: INTERNATIONAL FACULTY DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR IN GHANA

By Renate R. Mai-Dalton
Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior and the Director of the Multicultural Business Scholars Program (MBSP)

We hear shouts of "ASEe Ho, ASEe Ho" over and over again, as thousands of feet pound the red clay soil along the main road that leads from Kumasi to Accra, passing many small villages. Upscale cars, sirens, and soldier-carrying trucks race by at breakneck speeds to announce the coming of President John Agykum Kufuor. He had come to power in the 2000 election and returns to his home in the Ashanti Region of Ghana to attend the funeral of a friend. His Ghanain constituents from the small villages are lining the road in elation. In anticipation of President Kufuor's motorcade, they break out in the mix of chanting and rhythmic dancing that I had only witnessed on American TV when black South Africans joined forces in protest against the Apartheid regime. This was an exhilarating experience. The tumultuous atmosphere of joyful anticipation brought tears to my eyes. The crowd punched their thumbs toward the ground to signify the position of Kufuor's name on the election ballot, where they had voted "ASEe Ho", loosely translated as "on the bottom of the ballot page". Then, a cry of ecstasy came from the right side of the road, rolled toward us, passed us - and disappeared into the darkness toward Kumasi, the capital city of the Ashanti Region. The president and his entourage had passed.

Sometime during this spectacle, the twenty-one college professors, who were on a trip from Accra to Kumasi, joined the crowd's enthusiasm. We were stuck in traffic, on the opposite lane of the road where the President had just passed, stuffed into a small "tro tro" 30 seat bus, smothered by luggage and water bottles, with open windows, in brooding heat, for an overnight trip to various towns and villages. We all joined the celebrants from inside the bus by punching our "thumbs down" toward the ground and shouting "ASEe Ho" - and forgot how much of a spectacle we - ourselves - must have been to the Ghanains, who had easily singled us out with our Western attire and most of us with white faces.

This unplanned and unexpected event is most vividly imprinted on my memory, and I am grateful for the opportunity to visit Ghana last summer, the West African country which was the first Black African colony that gained its independence from Britain in 1957. Twenty-one faculty from universities and colleges across the United States, from as far north as Beloit in Wisconsin, east as Cornell in New York, south as Xavier in Louisiana, and west as California State in California, had come together from July 8 - 18, 2001 to participate in the International Faculty Development Seminar in Ghana, entitled "Ghana and the Dynamics of Economic Development". This was one of many seminars across the world that was offered by the Council on International Educational Exchange, International Study Programs. It was a strength of the seminar that the participating faculty came from widely divergent disciplines, such as economics, international relations, English, political science, history, sociology, and environmental analysis. This diversity was reflected during the question and answer periods of the seminar presentations.

The seminar was held at the University of Ghana in Legon, a few miles from Accra, the capital of Ghana, on the southern shore of the Atlantic Ocean. Our itinerary included daily lectures, travels on the weekend, and brief tours during the week. The seminar coordinator was Dr. Michael Williams, Professor of Sociology at the University of Ghana, who received his education at the University of Notre Dame and has lived in Ghana for the past six years. He was assisted by a Council representative, Nana Muschenheim, who received her education at the University of St. Thomas and the American University and has traveled widely across continents. Both of these individuals combined their efforts to give us a realistic picture of Ghana's culture and economics as well as made arrangements for our travels to Cape Coast and Kumasi.

Ghana has a population of about 18 million, covers 92,000 square miles, and is divided into ten regions. In 1471, the Portuguese arrived in the country and mined gold (Gold Coast area) and established their slave trade. In 1874, the British took over the Gold Coast and continued its trade in gold and slaves. It took the British until 1901 to defeat the Asante in the interior of the country and to take control over the current landmass that is Ghana.

The consequences of these occupations have wreaked havoc with Ghanaian society. As we learned during our lectures and on our travels, Ghanaian society has its own, intricate system of administration that no occupying power or recent attempts at democratization have been able to destroy. Thus, while Ghana has held democratic elections since 1957 and is run as a republic (its first president was Dr. Kwame Nkrumah), its "inner political workings" are strongly influenced by its Clanship Systems with Kings, Chiefs, and Queen Mothers who administer their states, towns, and villages. Their administrative functions include the executive, legislative, judicial, social, and economic functions. Although much of the land in Ghana has been acquired by the government, the remaining land is in the hands of the various clans and is apportioned to clan members. Land generally cannot be bought or sold, since it belongs to the ancestors.

I am giving this brief information to make the reader understand that the imposition of the western style of democratic government runs parallel with and is influenced by the original administrative system in Ghana. It points out the difficulty for Ghana and other African countries when they are required by private Help Agencies, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund to adopt a new political system, which is in conflict with their traditional one, in order to receive developmental assistance.

Travel to Ghana has provided the seminar participants some insights into such political complexity of developing countries and their relations to countries that want to be of assistance. The brevity of this article limits the examples that can be given here, but most of the seminar participants experienced insights in different areas which could not have been gained by reading the literature at home! Suffice it to say that all of us are grateful for the educational opportunities that we were given this summer. What we have learned we will share with our students on our various campuses and enrich the learning environment. It did not hurt that many of us also experienced personal growth which might make us more tolerant and understanding of the differences that we are faced with daily.