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Ashesi University is a private, secular, liberal arts college located in Labone, a suburb of Accra, Ghana, that opened in March of 2002, founded by Patrick Awuah, a graduate of Swarthmore College and Haas School of Business. Ashesi’s mission is to train a new generation of ethical, entrepreneurial business leaders in Africa and to nurture excellence in scholarship, leadership and citizenship. Ashesi, which means “beginning” in the Akan language is a new beginning for higher education in Ghana. Housed in a campus that is equipped with state-of-the-art computers and the latest teaching materials, Ashesi University is at the forefront of a move towards a new pedagogy in African higher education. The university is accredited by the Ghanaian National Accreditation Board and features a four-year bachelors program grounded in a liberal arts core curriculum, offering degrees in business administration , management information studies and computer science. With an academic program designed in collaboration with 24 professors from Swarthmore College, University of California, Berkeley and University of Washington, Ashesi offers an educational experience unlike anything else available in West Africa today.
[edit] History
Ashesi was founded by Patrick G. Awuah Jr., a Ghanaian who has spent over 15 years living and working in the United States. Awuah left Ghana in 1985 to attend Swarthmore College on a full scholarship, after which he worked for Microsoft Corporation as an engineer and a program manager for eight years. Experiencing firsthand the dramatic impact that education can have on one's life, Awuah embarked on a mission in 1997 to provide greater educational opportunities in Ghana. He enrolled at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, both to evaluate the feasibility of his goal and to gain a broader range of managerial skills with which to found and manage a university.
[edit] Feasibility Study
During the summer of 1998, a team of four MBA students from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business traveled to Ghana to conduct extensive market research and evaluate the feasibility of establishing a new university. With the explicit goal of gathering statistically significant data to provide a strong foundation for business decisions, the team administered over 3,300 surveys to students and parents; conducted interviews and focus groups with parents, teachers and business leaders; and gathered secondary information from local and international sources. The result was a comprehensive feasibility study [1] analyzing the Ghanaian tertiary education landscape by addressing both the demand and supply sides of the question of feasibility.
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[edit] Sources
Information quoted from Ashesi University website and other Ashesi University materials was used with permission of the University.
- Accra Mail (Ghana): "Ashesi University Re-Accredited", August 10, 2005
