Looking Back and Forward first-ever Hip-Life Festival, which raised over $10,000 from local businesses, and now works for the World Health Organization. Another runs a newspaper in Tanzania. To me, these students— and there are so many of these success stories— are NYU Accra’s treasure.
NYU Accra, our link to Africa, offers a unique
curriculum that relates to different departments and schools in New York City. NYU’s Africa House and Institute of African American Affairs have been significant bridges and enormous resources Awam Amkpa, associate professor of social and
for NYU Accra for the development of research,
cultural analysis, interim director of Africana studies,
photography, and writing programs. What NYU
and associate professor of drama at Tisch School
Accra offers now can also be linked to the curricula
of the Arts, is an author, actor, and documentary
at the Shanghai and Abu Dhabi campuses.
filmmaker. When NYU decided to open an academic center in Africa, he moved to Accra to join the team
Recently, I’ve been teaching at NYU Abu
of professors who were asked to take the idea of an
Dhabi and have witnessed the desire of students
NYU location in Ghana and make it reality. Here’s a
there to connect with Africa. And it’s interesting
reflection in his own words.
because Africa was always culturally, religiously, politically, and economically part of the Middle
I grew up in the region, and I, like most Africans,
East—before the Americas, before Europe. It will
believe that the human population is the
be great to see how the Ghanaian scholars can
continent’s most significant asset. Ghana is already
impact the curriculum in Abu Dhabi. China is
one of the top-five rising economies in the world,
already engaging with Africa on a large scale, so
so what can NYU offer? The answer: We can
broadening our reach to NYU Shanghai can also
find a way to stimulate the local production
have positive results in the development of
of knowledge.
new knowledge.
Our students got involved with the local
Currently, I’m making a film with a story that
community almost instantly. They developed
traces art history from Accra to Abu Dhabi to
relationships with neighbors and businesses.
Florence, and it shows the historical connectivity
They set up concerts, conferences, and fundraisers.
of countries that have been intimately related
They volunteered in schools and clinics. They
since the first century when the Moors were
made documentary films about the city and the
importing gold to Italy. The film has taken me to
community. The experience in Accra can and does
NYU locations in these three cities, and I’m also
change lives, and many students have gone on to
setting up visual and performance archives that
careers that are connected to Africa. One student
connect the histories of these places so people can
returned to Ghana after he graduated and now
be more connected to one another and develop
lives and works in Senegal. Another organized the
new knowledge.
18 • NYU Accra: Tenth Anniversary Sankofa