The Vice-President for Academic Affairs and Provost of the University of Liberia, Dr. Wede Elliot-Brownwell, has visited KNUST. Her visit was to afford her the opportunity to familiarise herself with Ghanaian tertiary education. It was also as a result of a two-man delegation’s educational visit from KNUST to Liberia.
The Visit was undertaken by Dr. Joseph Ofei Darko, A senior Lecturer at the Department of Agricultural Engineering and Vincent Ankamh-Lomotey, Acting Deputy Registrar, of the University Relations Office.
Professor William Otoo Ellis, the Vice-Chancellor, stated that KNUST as a public academic institution has trained more people in Africa and beyond and Liberia is no exception. He further said KNUST trained a lot of Liberians during the period of the Liberian Civil War. It is therefore a good opportunity to offer more training to Liberians.
Professor Ellis welcomed collaborations in the area of research, staff and students exchange, development of study modules for the University of Liberia, and to offer special admission packages to students from Liberia.
Administratively, he pledged KNUST’s assistance to make its staff available and to help build the capacity of the Liberian University staff.
Dr. Elliot-Brownwell said the University of Liberia was founded in 1862 as a College but attained a full University status in 1957. The University which currently has over twenty thousand students has several linkages with American Universities. As a result of the Civil War, the University of Liberia is undergoing reconstruction which calls for more human resource to augment the existing staff of the University. The University of Liberia have receive grant from the United States Agency for International Development(USAID) to run academic programmes, however, it does not have the requisite staff to run these programmes. She therefore appealed to KNUST to assist in the provision of lecturers, most especially professors and academic doctors to offer lectures in medicine, science and technology courses notably physics, civil engineering, geology and other engineering disciplines.
Again she also wanted collaborations with KNUST to offer admissions to staff from her University and to encourage knowledge transfer between the two institutions. She also expressed her preparedness in the area of graduate recruitment and to embark on joint research with KNUST.
The Provosts of the Six Colleges of the University took Dr. Elliot-Brownwell through the programmes being offered at the Departments within their Colleges and the Job prospects of graduands of their Colleges. They also expressed their readiness to assist the University of Liberia.
