Having spent his early childhood and high school years in Ghana, Dalton State College’s director of institutional research Dr. Henry Codjoe knows a lot about life in the west African nation.

Knowing that Ghana’s Regent University College of Science and Technology’s newest campus was in need of text and reference books for its library, Codjoe arranged to send no-longer-used texts from Dalton State overseas to help the university populate its collection.

Now, a few months after the 40,000 pound shipment of books arrived in Accra, Ghana, Dalton State and Regent University College have entered into a “memorandum of understanding,” and will establish academic cooperation agreements, including an exchange of students, teaching and research personnel.

“For years, I have been asked by some of the colleges in Ghana to send unused books to their schools, and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do,” says Codjoe, noting that many professors in African nations are aware that American textbooks are “frequently thrown away.”

Codjoe asked Dalton State faculty members to consider donating texts that they were no longer using to the cause. The response was very good, and the college was able to send over hundreds of books, primarily those used in psychology, sociology and humanities courses.

Regent University College paid the shipping costs and now administrators have announced that they plan to name the new library after Dalton State College when its doors open next year.

“We are very much excited about receiving these books and about the collaboration between my university and Dalton State,” says Professor E. Kingsley Larbi, President of Regent University College of Science and Technology, who visited the Dalton campus recently to sign the memorandum of understanding along with Dr. John Schwenn, President of Dalton State.

“Africa is one of the few continents that is well endowed when it comes to human capital and in terms of material resources,” he adds, “but what is missing is leadership. It is the challenge now for our leaders to be able to have at heart the interests of our people and to take them from where they are to where they need to be. That begins with education.”

Larbi believes that the growth in the number of educational institutions – 30 private universities have been established since 1997 – will enable greater numbers of Ghanaians to find good jobs in their country and not have to leave home to find work in professional fields.

Programs that are in high demand will be offered through the Regent University College of Science and Technology, Larbi notes, saying several will be implemented immediately with assistance from Dalton State.

Some of those include the associate of science degree in nursing, medical clinical assistant, medical radiologic technology, surgical technology technologist, electrical/electronic equipment installation and repair and emergency medical technology.

The collaboration between the two schools will involve an educational exchange of faculty and a mutual exchange of students.