I will not let you down, I promise - New UG Chancellor

Newly appointed Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Mary Chinery-Hesse, has vowed not to fall short in her duties as head of the institution but will strive to do better than her predecessors.

Deeming her appointment as an “honour” and a “pleasant beam of light,” Mary Chinery-Hesse praised her predecessors for doing a great job in ensuring the premiere university maintained its fundamental standards of being the best.

She was speaking at an Investiture and her Swearing-In ceremony which was held at the University on Wednesday.

Mrs. Mary Chinery-Hesse was elected to replace H.E. Kofi Annan, as the school’s Chancellor.

According to a statement signed by the University’s Registrar, Mercy Haizel Ashia, Mrs. Chinery-Hesse assumes the role officially on 1st August, 2018.

Thanking God as well as the university council and the academic board who had faith in her competence to lead the school, the former Chief Advisor, to H.E. John Agyekum Kufuor said, “it is solely right that I thank all those who have expressed some confidence in me that I could raise some positive additionality to the affairs of the university by supporting my election to this high office.”

“I promise I will not let you down,” she declared.

She added, “I’m filling the shoes of great ones beyond the heads of state who occupied the chair in ex official status. Mr Kofi Annan, my immediate predecessor and brother, who opened doors for the university’s critical funding sources and now I have been deemed fit to sit on this chair.”

Although Mary Chinery-Hesse recounted how she witnessed the installation of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s as the very first Chancellor when the University obtained full and autonomous status in 1961, she admitted that never in her wildest dreams did she imagine it will be her turn to occupy the seat.

“I do not think that anybody can deny the historical nature of today’s ceremony. The University of Ghana invest its first female Chancellor in the year it is celebrating its founding 70 years ago,” she averred.