The Carnegie Corporation International Programmes Officer, Dr. Claudia Frittelli last Monday September 1, 2015 visited the University of Ghana to familiarize herself with some of the activities being carried out under the UG-Carnegie Project. The UG Carnegie Project, is a multi-million dollar scholarship grant aimed at promoting postgraduate studies at the University. The project developed from an ongoing relationship between the University of Ghana and Carnegie and is part of the latter’s drive towards the Next Generation of Academics in Africa in support of post graduate education across Africa.
Dr. Frittelli is the officer in charge of Carnegie’s Higher Education Research Policy and Governance initiatives. She also manages the African Academic Diasporan Linkages initiative that supports selected Universities in Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. She spent the day at the Center for African Wetlands, which hosts the Carnegie Project offices and held a meeting with the staff of the Project. She also visited the University of Ghana Carnegie Writing Centre where she interacted with Professor Helen Yitah, the Director of the Centre and her staff. She also visited the Balme Library where she was taken on aguided tour of the Research Commons as well as the Knowledge Commons by the University Librarian, Professor Ellis Badu.
Later in the day she had an interaction with some of the beneficiaries of the Carnegie scholarship. This included some MPhil and PhD candidates currently persuing their programmes and others who had completed, including some early carrier faculty at the University of Ghana. Introducing her to the students, the Director of the UG-Carnegie Project, Prof. Yaa Ntiamoa-Baidu said the purpose of Dr. Frittelli’s visit was to acquaint herself with developments within the project and more importantly, to apprise herself on the experiences of the beneficiaries. Dr. Frittelli spent time with the beneficiaries in a lively and interactive session. She said it was important that beneficiaries took the feedback process seriously since this was a critical part of the evaluative process that allowed the organizers to improve the programme.
Also present at the meeting was Prof. Samuel Obeng, a UG Diasporan Fellow from the University of Indiana who just arrived at the University to take up an appointment as a Visiting Professor with the Department of Linguistics under the Carnegie funded UG Diasporan Linkages Programme. With funding from the Carnegie Foundation the UG is able to tap into a pool of expertise provided by African Professors in the Diaspora to augment its faculty strength and to enhance post-graduate training.
Before leaving, Dr. Frittelli had the opportunity to interact with the beneficiaries informally over lunch and also see some of the publications by the University of Ghana, under the Readers Series which the Foundation had some financial input in at the initial stages.