Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, if confirmed, will be the first female to be appointed to the position
• The University of Ghana has a new Vice-Chancellor
• Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo becomes the first female to occupy the position
• She was in charge of Academic and Students Affairs at the University of Ghana
Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo has been appointed to act as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana.
Her appointment takes effect from August 1, 2021.
Until her appointment, which is a decision by the institution’s newly constituted Governing Council’s, chaired by Sophia Akuffo, a former Chief Justice, Prof. Amfo was the Pro-Vice-Chancellor in charge of Academic and Students Affairs at the University of Ghana, reports citinewsroom.com.
Should Prof. Amfo be confirmed, she would be the youngest so far, as well as the first female Vice-Chancellor in the history of the premier university.
According to the news portal, a statement from the school’s Registrar stated that she will be in an acting position following the expiration on July 31, 2021, of the tenure of the current Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Ebenezer Oduro Owusu.
It added that Prof. Appiah Amfo will be in that role “until such a time the University Council appoints a substantive Vice-Chancellor.”
The statement added that, “The Council considered Section 10 (2)(b) of the University of Ghana, Act 2010 (Act 806), and Section 6 (3) of the University of Ghana, and decided on the appointment of the senior of the two Pro-Vice-Chancellors, to act.
“The newly appointed Acting-Vice-Chancellor is a Professor of Linguistics and was appointed Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Academic and Students Affairs on November 1, 2019.”
Her profile, as shared below, is courtesy of citinewsroom.com.
Profile of Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo
Professor Nana Aba Appiah Amfo is an alumna of the University of Ghana.
She had her secondary education at Holy Child School and Archbishop Porter Girls’ Secondary School and proceeded to the University of Ghana from 1991 to 1996 for a Bachelor’s degree in French and Linguistics.
Both her MPhil (2001) and PhD (2007) degrees in Linguistics are from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.
Prof. Amfo has received additional training in higher education management and leadership from Harvard Business School, University of Applied Sciences, Germany, and INSEAD, France.
Professor Amfo’s career in academia started in 2001 as a Lecturer in the Department of Linguistics, was promoted Senior Lecturer in 2007, Associate Professor in 2011, and Professor in 2017.
Her research interests are in the linguistic sub-discipline of Pragmatics, which allows her to explore the role that context plays in our conversational interactions and how that influences communication in different domains.
Before her appointment as Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Professor Amfo served as Dean of the School of Languages, having previously served as the Head of the Department of Linguistics from 2013 to 2014.
She has participated in the governance of the University of Ghana through her service on several statutory and Adhoc Boards and Committees.
Professor Amfo is currently an Advisory Board member of the Coalition of People Against Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Harmful Practices (CoPASH) – A UNFPA supported programme.
She is a member of several professional associations including the Society of Communication, Medicine and Ethics, International Pragmatics Association (where she serves on its Consultation Board; the first African to serve in this capacity since the Association’s establishment in 1986); West African Linguistics Society and Linguistics Association of Ghana (where she served as President from 2010 to 2014); a pioneer fellow, senior scholar and Chair of the Steering Committee of the African Humanities Program of the American Council of Learned Societies. She is also a fellow of the German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD), Commonwealth Professional.
