Nana Aba Appiah Amfo Quotes

My parents were teachers, they put a premium on education and they did not discriminate as far as their daughters or sons were concerned. They gave me the opportunity to get educated to the highest level that I so desired. They brought me up to believe that I can do anything that I wanted to – anything that my brothers could do, I could also do.

Men have dominated our boardrooms, men have dominated academia. Here in my university, the proportion of women academics, that’s just about 30 per cent. And as you can imagine, the higher you go up the ranks, the fewer women that you find. But, I must say, that it’s a good time at my university, I am the first female vice-chancellor. For the first time too, we have a female chancellor, we also have a female council chair for the first time. It is a source of encouragement to many females out there, but also for males – they dream for themselves, they dream for their wives, their daughters, their sisters.

I always wanted to be a professor at the very top. It’s not your teacher, mentor, boss or parent’s responsibility.

Education was at the heart of national development and higher education was at the apex and that this conversation is critical because we have to periodically examine how we deliver this all-important mandate.

Pragmatics specifically looks at language use in context. For you to be able to make meaning out of what we say, you almost always need the context. Sometimes you need the history, the religion, the culture, you need the philosophy and so on.

We should be less focused on assessing students based on memory, and more on application. For that to happen, we need to focus on teacher training, incentivise our brightest students to go into teaching and keep small class sizes to allow for more interaction.

The two concepts driving my tenure are technology and humanism. We need to incorporate technology in our teaching and learning in small and big ways.

Understand the authority you have; but keep your head low because positions don’t last forever. It’s not really about you, it’s about your office. If you don’t build networks and lifelong relationships, you could be very lonely at the end of your tenure.

Lifelong learning must not be confined to the classroom or to any age in life as life is dynamic; and the day you stop learning, you become intellectually dead and cease to be relevant to your society.

I will say I have been blessed in many ways as I started my family life before my career. I started my Master’s when my first child was four months old so while I was studying, I was raising him. And this was out of Ghana so I didn’t have my mother or auntie to support me in raising him, which made it difficult. While I was doing my Master’s I had my second child.

From the beginning it wasn’t something I had my eyes on but as I built my academic career, as I developed my administrative competencies, and with the inputs and support of others I worked with, at some point I convinced myself that when the position is vacant I will give it a shot.

If anyone wants to make a mark in life, then there was the need to invest in one’s personal development. Spend time and effort developing yourself. Jesus private prayer life was the key to His robust public ministry.

Coming to this position, I intend to drive the growth of this university through technology and humanism. The past two years has taught us we all need to take technology very seriously and we’ve had experiences of what we can use technology for. In every aspect of the university’s operations – from research management to teaching and learning, to administrative processes, to student management – I intend that technology drives this. But we should not forget that we’re there for the humans … the university exists for the good of the larger society.

Because I do believe I’m not the only one who works the hardest – yes, I do work hard, but it’s also important to take advantage of opportunities as they come, because they prepare you for positions ahead.

Absolutely, both need mentoring and I have mentored both men and women in my career. What I seek to do is to support women to come out of their shells, to support women to overcome the barriers that prevent them from achieving their highest potential. That’s why I think that women need special attention – we have so much great potential, but there are so many things that encumber us in society, our gender roles, what society expects of us. These tend to hinder us from being professionally excellent.