3 professors inducted as fellows of Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences
Three Ghanaian professors have been inducted as fellows of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences (GAAS), during the academy’s 2023 Founder’s Week celebration held in Accra last Tuesday.
They are a Professor of Geography and Resource Development and the Principal of the Accra City Campus of the University of Ghana, Prof. Joseph Awetori Yaro; Professor of Linguistics at the Indiana University- Bloomington in the United States, Prof. Samuel Gyasi Obeng, and Professor of Geography and Resource Development at the University of Ghana, Prof. Alex Boakye Asiedu.
They have played significant roles in their various professions, as well as contributed immensely in national development.
This year’s ceremony was on the theme: “International Order in a Changing World: Implications for Rules, Institutions, Norms, Alliances and Ghana.”
Contributions
The President of the Academy, Prof. Kofi Opoku Nti, said the GAAS was excited to have them as fellows while expressing hope that they would help strengthen it through their contributions to its diverse programmes and activities.
According to the president, the new fellows were very accomplished in their fields of endeavour and had proven themselves leaders within and outside of their professions.
“We are hopeful that you will help to energise the academy with new ideas, innovations and infectious commitment to the vision and values of the academy,” he added.
President, Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, inducting Prof. Joseph Awetori Yaro (left), lecturer, Geography and Resource Development, UG; Prof. Samuel Gyassi Obeng (middle), lecturer, Linguistics, UG, and Prof. Alex Boakye Asiedu (right), lecturer, Geography and Resource Development, UG, into the academy
He said the vision of the academy as articulated in the GAAS Strategic Plan, 2020 – 2025, was to be Ghana’s foremost merit-based society committed to national development and the advancement of the world.
Prof. Nti added that its values were relevance, integrity, professionalism and excellence.
He, therefore, urged them to let the vision and the values guide them throughout their fellowship.
Participation
As newly inducted fellows, Prof. Nti said they were expected to participate as resource persons, cheerleaders or facilitators for GAAS flagship programmes, including the JB Danquah Memorial Lectures, Ephraim Amu Memorial Lectures and the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Lectures.
“You are joining an academy that has been in existence for 64 years, one of the oldest in Africa. You are joining an Academy that has continuously delivered a diverse programme of activities to promote the study, extension and dissemination of knowledge in all fields.”
You will have as colleague fellows some of the smartest, experienced and accomplished people in Ghana and you will have as role models, deceased fellows who broke unimaginable barriers to make great contributions,” the President said.
Solve Ghana’s problems
He said the academy was in Ghana for a purpose, indicating that the opportunities and challenges in the country generated the raw materials for its intellectual inquiries and explorations.
“We in Ghana must solve a different set of problems to ensure our survival and progress in the larger world.
Our knowledge and experience operating in our environment should give us unique insights that others may not have.
Like our contemporaries elsewhere, we must create knowledge and develop skills and tools to solve Ghana’s problems,” Prof. Nti urged the fellows.
While working on the country’s problems, he said they might discover, invent, or produce a universal thing or idea that the rest of the world valued or could use.
The linkage, he said, could also go the other way where they could take a universal thing or idea from elsewhere and apply it to solve the country’s problems.