On Thursday July 7, 2016, Dr. Marcia Grant said her final goodbyes to a community she had come to call home for the past three and a half years. Her journey with Ashesi, however, started long before she became Provost.
In 2007, when she received an honorary doctorate degree from Swarthmore College, she learned about a young Ghanaian who had also been a awarded an honorary doctorate earlier. After reading about him and the liberal arts college he had founded in Ghana, Marcia sent a donation to support Ashesi's dream. The relationship started there. In the years following, she visited Ashesi during the annual donor trip in 2011, and in 2013 became Ashesi’s provost.
It’s been a good three years,” Marcia said. “I’ve seen so many people grow marvelously, and we will keep surpassing ourselves as we grow carefully.”
While Ashesi’s community will miss Marcia’s presence, her legacy will remain indelible in the building blocks of Ashesi’s growth. At Ashesi’s 12th commencement, the Deputy Minister of Education announced that Ashesi will receive its presidential charter by the end of 2016.
For Marcia, working towards Ashesi’s Presidential Charter had been highest priority as Provost. “I had certain goals, one of them was to get the charter, more than anything,” she said. “Now that we’re only several steps away, we’re more excited about how much of a difference it will make for Ashesi.”
For both members of faculty and staff, Marcia’s leadership spurred both individual and institutional growth. “It has been such a pleasure getting to know [Marcia] over the past couple of years,” said Dr. Ayorkor Korsah. “She’s helped us think more long term in terms of our careers and what it means to be faculty at Ashesi, about what Ashesi means in the local context and what it means to Africa.”
In the midst of guiding to start Ashesi’s Engineering program, reshaping the curriculum with new courses such as Foundations of Design and Entrepreneurship and French, Marcia also had the chance to learn from Ashesi. “It’s opened new intellectual arenas, and its giving me new connections,” she said. “The multiplying factor for us can happen in a lot of different ways. We really can do more.”