A 334-page festschrift celebrating the outstanding contributions of Professor Samuel Kofi Afrane, the immediate past Vice-Chancellor of the Christian Service University (CSU) in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, has been unveiled.
A festschrift is more than just a book, as it is a scholarly tribute and an intellectual appreciation of a person’s contribution to scholarship, professional life and the society.
Titled “Planning, leadership and sustainable development: A Festschrift in honour of Professor Samuel Kofi Afrane”, the book comprises 11 chapters which touch on various topics, written by 22 authors.
It brought together scholarly contributions from academics, researchers, former students, professional associates and other scholars whose interests engage contemporary questions relating to planning, leadership and sustainable development.
The ceremony also coincided with the send-off service for Professor Afrane, after ending his 10-year service to the CSU.
There were presentations of citations and gifts to the celebrant from institutions, including CSU, Department of Planning, KNUST, alumni, CSU and his family.
Strongly associated
Unveiling the book, the Chancellor, CSU, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel K. Asante, said Prof. Afrane’s career had been strongly associated with the discipline and practice of planning, particularly through his years at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
He said his teaching, research and consultancy work have contributed significantly to the development of planning practice in Ghana, saying “through his scholarship and professional engagements, he demonstrated how planning knowledge can transform institutional development, community transformation and national progress.
He stated that Prof. Afrane’s decade of long service as VC of CSU represented a defining chapter in the career, stressing “this role placed him at the intersection of scholarship, institutional leadership, Christian higher education and public service”.
“His leadership strengthened the university’s academic profile, expanded its institutional vision and deepened its commitment to Christian mission” Prof Asante stated.
On the book, he said “the document affirms that scholarship becomes hugely significant when it moves beyond the production of knowledge to contribute to the transformation of human communities and institutions”.
Analytical capacity
Prof. Afrane said planning education equipped him with enormous analytical capacity and the ability to engage professionals and speak competently on several issues in the market place.
He said “with this ability, I became very versatile, capable of playing many leadership roles in institutions, communities and the church”, and added that he always explored how his research could be applied to the benefit of the society.
For example, he said in his doctoral thesis, he predicted that with the growth in communication technology and other human and environmental factors in the next three decades, many jobs would move from big industrial areas in cities into residential areas, which was currently happening.
Lessons learnt
Touching on lessons over the years, Prof Afrane, who is also the immediate past Board Chairman of the Graphic Communications Group Ltd, said if one’s leadership decisions were largely vision-driven, one could easily be misunderstood and sometimes maligned as arrogant, unrealistic and out of touch with reality.
“One must learn how to effectively communicate his or her visionary ideas to people to secure their buy-in, else one’s ground-breaking innovations will be shot down to his or her utmost surprise” he said.
He said “if you want to carry people with you in your leadership role, then be genuinely interested in people’s welfare and also ensure they have access to you”.
A Co-Chairperson of the event, the Principal, Jackson University College, Theodosia Wilhemina Jackson, said Prof. Afrane was worth mentioning as he planted many seeds that had grown, including strengthening infrastructure and expansion of academic programmes.
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