Photo by Pat Christman
Sam Afrane, a professor from a large university in Ghana, West Africa, is in Mankato this week studying online education and nonprofits. Eventually, he and is colleagues will team with MSU professors to form an educational cooperative that will result in joint research into nonprofits, and an exchange of students and faculty between the countries.
This guy's visit gives new meaning to the term distance education.
Sam Afrane, chairman of the Department of Planning at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana, is visiting Minnesota State University this week with a twofold purpose.
He is researching online teaching and learning — also known as distance education — and nonprofit organizations. His is the initial step in what officials from both universities hope will be many forms of cooperation.
Afrane, who holds a Ph.D., arrived July 2, and will head back to Ghana Sunday. His MSU counterparts in the department of Urban Studies have had plenty for him to do.
"I've been quite busy," he said. "Quite productively engaged."
Afrane's research into — and current knowledge of — nonprofits will eventually be used to establish the first-ever university program to prepare people to go to work for nonprofits. Many students already do. Afrane says more than half of the students in his university's planning program take jobs with nonprofits, which happen to pay more than public sector jobs in Ghana.
He also is researching MSU's extensive online course offerings. Faculty back at his university, he says, are willing to venture into online education, but the technology isn't quite there yet.
"We have the technology, but it is not that robust," he said. "We need more money ... more infrastructure."
Afrane's host during his visit is Tony Filipovitch, chairman of MSU's Urban and Regional Studies Institute. His arrival in Mankato was an event months in the making.
One of the faculty members in the Urban and Regional Studies Institute raised the notion of cooperation with a Ghanan university last year. Then, during last year's Pan- African Conference, the Ghanan ambassador was one of the conference guests.
While here he and MSU officials agreed to form multi-disciplinary partnerships between MSU and Kwame Nkrumah University.
Afrane's visit is the first step toward accomplishing that goal. In October, a delegation of MSU faculty members will travel to Ghana. Eventually, a jointly run nonprofit dedicated to urban studies research will be set up. They also hope to establish a student exchange.
The partnership, Filipovitch says, will be a good one for MSU.
"We get a way to open our students to the broader world," he said. "There's a lot we can learn from them about pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, even when those bootstraps are thin."
Afrane's school contains about 18,000 students. There are five such universities in Ghana, and about 20 smaller private institutions.
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