September 26, 2025

by Lauren Ferguson

For 25 years, Ramapo College of New Jersey students and faculty have benefited from the college’s partnership with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumas, Ghana.

Over that time, more than 140 Ramapo students have visited KNUST including those pursuing study abroad experiences, service-learning cohorts, student government leaders and the college chorale.

Ramapo faculty and staff have also made 54 visits to the university in Africa to share knowledge on environmental science, film, nursing, sociology, healthcare and university governance. And KNUST faculty and staff have enriched Ramapo’s classrooms and community by also making more than 50 visits to the college’s campus in Mahwah, NJ.

To strengthen and sustain the partnership, leaders of Ramapo and KNUST renewed their Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for an additional three years at a virtual signing ceremony in September.

“This is more than a memorandum,” Ramapo President Dr. Cindy Jebb said at the ceremony. “It is a renewal of friendship, a promise of collaboration, and a testament to what is possible when institutions commit to working together in the spirit of global engagement.”

The Ramapo Chorale visited Ghana in 2017 to perform at KNUST and tour the area.

According to the MOU, its continued objective “is to enhance the achievements in teaching, learning, research and the cultural development of both institutions through the promotion of systematic, continuing scholarly exchange opportunities for faculty and professional staff to participate in instruction, curriculum development, research and service and for visiting students to pursue short-term and long-term academic programs and activities.”

The MOU anticipates a focus on areas such as nursing, biology, data science, social work, Africana studies and international studies, but states that no academic area will be excluded. It also states that the institutions will explore opportunities for joint research and publications, including providing opportunities for students to serve as research assistants.

“We are especially enthusiastic about expanding student mobility, empowering more of our students to study, live, and learn in each other’s communities. These experiences will prepare them to be the globally minded and responsible leaders our world –our communities– so urgently need,” Jebb said. “At the same time, we are committed to strengthening faculty development and supporting collaborative projects that bring our scholars together to address pressing global challenges through civil discourse, partnership, and the free exchange of ideas.”

KNUST Vice-Chancellor Dr. Rita Akosua Dickson called the partnership one built on “trust, friendship, and shared vision.”

The relationship between the institutions began when former Dean of Ramapo’s School of Theoretical and Applied Sciences, Eddie Saiff, Kathleen Burke, assistant dean of Ramapo’s nursing program, and Dr. Kwesi Aggrey, former assistant vice president for academic affairs, visited KNUST to discuss starting a nursing program in the Ghanaian university’s medical school. The connection sparked the first formal MOU signed in 2001 between KNUST and Ramapo’s School of Theoretical and Applied Sciences. By 2010, the scope of collaboration had grown, and the MOU was expanded to become a Ramapo-wide agreement.

Dr. Kofi Owusu-Daaku, professor of biology at KNUST, first taught at Ramapo in fall of 2002, then returned in 2006 to teach during the summer, and has taught at Ramapo every summer since. During 2017-2018, he spent the academic year at Ramapo.

Dr. Kofi Owusu-Daaku, professor of biology at KNUST,  has spent nearly 20 summers teaching at Ramapo.

“It is wonderful. I like it, because I keep coming back,” Owusu-Daaku said during a send-off reception this past August before he headed home to Ghana. “I like to be able to weave my way through, so that by the time we are finished with the five weeks, we are family, me and my students.”

Owusu-Daaku said he enjoys the “little pushback” from American students, and shared his key to teaching “is the performance, keeping the class alive.”

Ramapo Provost Michael Middleton said Owusu-Daaku “brings so much joy and hard work and commitment to education to our students,” and that his annual visit is a reminder of KNUST’s commitment to Ramapo.

Dr. Paul Currant, Ramapo’s new director of study abroad and the Roukema Center for International Education, said focus will now turn to ways to build the partnership between the two institutions for the next three years and beyond, with the goal of having “regular, meaningful contacts between KNUST and Ramapo that will benefit students, faculty, and staff on both sides.”

“There are many established and new ways to do this from in person student programs, to virtual collaborations, to engagements now made possible by the development of next generation technologies,” Currant said. “We look forward to working with the staff, faculty, and students at KNUST and Ramapo to make this partnership academically and culturally innovative and internationally recognized as a standard for global academic agreements.”

For more information on international opportunities through Ramapo, visit https://www.ramapo.edu/international/.