US College To Honor Ashesi University Founder

Swarthmore College President Alfred H. Bloom will award honorary degrees to four alumni at the College's 132nd commencement on Sunday, May 30. About 360 seniors are expected to graduate at the ceremony, which will be held at 10 a.m. in the Scott Outdoor Auditorium.

Receiving honorary degrees are Patrick G. Awuah, Jr., a member of the Class of 1989 and founder of Ashesi University College in Ghana, renowned Shakespeare scholar and cultural critic Marjorie Garber, a member of the Class of 1966, and Joy Kaiser, Class of 1951, and Herbert Kaiser, Class of 1949, founders of the non-profit Medical Education for Southern African Blacks

Patrick Awuah '89

Awuah, a Ghana native and former Microsoft manager, founded Ashesi, Ghana's first liberal arts college, based on the model he experienced as a student at Swarthmore. His eventual hope is for Ashesi, which means "beginning" in the Ghanian language Akan, to become the seed for an African Ivy League. His efforts led the Seattle Times to recently describe him as a "latter-day Andrew Carnegie."

In 1985, Awuah left Ghana with $50 and a full scholarship to Swarthmore. He graduated in 1989 with a double major in economics and engineering and quickly landed a job at Microsoft. He excelled there as an engineer and program manager but always knew he wanted to return to Ghana. After Awuah started a family with his wife Rebecca, he decided it was time. Awuah left Microsoft in 1997 and enrolled in the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. His master's project: a feasibility study of Ashesi.

First opened in 2002, Ashesi now has 110 full-time students who enjoy a student-faculty ratio of no more than 12:1. It offers a general studies program developed with help from Swarthmore faculty, a computer science program designed with the University of Washington, and a business management program developed with Berkeley's Haas School.