Ashesi University: the Journey from Vision to Reality
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9-DRAFT JANUARY 16, 2016 RANJAY GULATI CAROLINE DE LACVIVIER Ashesi University: The Journey From Vision to Reality In 2006, Patrick Awuah was in his office when Professor Krzysztof Gajos, a visiting lecturer, knocked on the door.1 Awuah invited him in, offered him a seat and asked what was on his mind. “I just did a quiz,” Gajos said, “and one third of my class cheated on it.” Awuah sat back, dumbfounded. After four years of building Ashesi University, this was exactly the sort of behavior he had been trying to eradicate. When he founded the school in 2002, he swore it would be different from other universities in Ghana, which encouraged rote memorization and put little to no emphasis on ethics. Indeed, cheating was a fairly common practice in many African schools. Some high school teachers even taught their students how to cheat on standardized exams. At Ashesi, Awuah had worked hard to instill a code of ethics in the students, engaging them in discussions about integrity and even having them act out skits that tackled tough ethical situations. He’d encouraged faculty to take a zero tolerance stance on academic dishonesty. The first offense meant an "F" in the course and a second meant expulsion. “I was really shocked by this…I thought we had this thing under control,” he recalled. “This was a wakeup call for me.”2 At Ashesi’s next faculty and staff retreat, Awuah gathered his team around a table and asked them a simple question: “What is it that’s true about Ashesi that we wish wasn’t?” People shared vague misgivings, suggesting that perhaps their facilities could be nicer. "I think that the most brutal truth about Ashesi is that our students are cheating,” Awuah countered. He shared with them his conversation with Gajos and remarked that chief executives were usually the last to hear about a problem. If he knew about it, the issue must be quite serious. The faculty resisted at first, feeling an implied accusation in Awuah’s observation. In reply, Awuah insisted that he simply wanted to face what was true. Faculty started to talk about cheating situations that they had handled independently, trying to save students the grave consequences of a judicial committee hearing. As they went around the table, it became clear that many students were repeat offenders, but the faculty hadn’t known because they weren't reported to a central system. “Getting everybody to acknowledge that there was a problem and not sweep it under the rug was important,” Awuah explained. 3 Over the next few years, he would attack the issue from many different angles, but his most powerful approach was to engage the students themselves. After all, their support would count the 1 Interview with Matthew Taggart, former director of development, Ashesi University, by phone, March 3, 2016. Hereafter cited as “Matthew Taggart Interview.” 2 Macarthur Foundation, “Education Entrepreneur Patrick Awuah, 2015 MacArthur Fellow,” YouTube, published September 28, 2015, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkBD3Dhf1pg], accessed January 2016. 3 Interview with Patrick Awuah, president, Ashesi University, by phone, March 30, 2016. Hereafter cited as “Patrick Awuah Interview.” Professor Ranjay Gulati and Research Associate Caroline de Lacvivier prepared this case. It was reviewed and approved before publication by a company designate. Funding for the development of this case was provided by Harvard Business School and not by the company. HBS cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright © 2016 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu. This publication may not be digitized, photocopied, or otherwise reproduced, posted, or transmitted, without the permission of Harvard Business School. DRAFT Ashesi University: The Journey From Vision to Reality most toward reaching a solution. At the next university town hall meeting, he explained what had happened and set the students a landmark task. “I asked them to engage in a conversation about how they could take ownership of this matter.” There was a pause in the quad as students absorbed the full weight of this request. In a country where most teachers had a hard-nosed, authoritarian approach to education, few students had ever been asked to think for themselves. Now, Awuah was telling the students to resolve this complex ethical issue on their own. Having attended Swarthmore College, Awuah was a believer in his alma-mater's philosophy that trusting students to behave ethically, along with engaging them in a conversation about values, helped encourage ethical behavior. After years of preaching the virtues of the liberal arts education, encouraging students to think critically, to have their own opinions and come to their own conclusions, it was finally time for Awuah to hand the reigns to his students and put his theory to the test.4 Formative Years: 1965-1989 Patrick Awuah was born in 1965, a tumultuous period in Ghanaian history when Kwame Nkrumah, the country’s president-turned-dictator, had just suspended the constitution and was in the process of driving the economy into the ground. In 1967, a military coup put an end to his rule, just to usher in a period of political unrest and a cycle of draconian military government. A series of regimes, initiated by coups both military and civilian, would create turbulence for the next thirteen years. In 1981, the Provisional National Defense Council (PNDC) took power and exacted military rule for the next decade.5 It was in this environment that Awuah came of age, raised by his engineer father and nurse mother. Both had gone abroad for their education and hoped that Awuah would do the same. Awuah originally wanted to be an astronaut, then settled on electrical engineering, inspired in part by his father and in part by the science fiction books he read voraciously.6 In 1981, when Awuah was just sixteen years old, he had a run in with two soldiers that deeply informed his attitude toward Ghanaian authority figures. On his way to pick up his father at the airport, he walked up a grassy slope toward the terminal when two soldiers stopped him in his tracks. Both held AK-47 assault rifles. They told him that he was walking in an unauthorized zone and, as a punishment, was commanded to run up and down the embankment until they told him to stop. This was when Awuah noticed a group of people running in a herd, presumably punished for the same reason. There were no signs indicating that the slope was out of bounds and Awuah’s teenagerly sense of justice flared up. “I started to argue with these men. It was a little reckless, but I was sixteen."7 Luckily, a pilot fell into the same predicament. Dressed in an official uniform, the soldiers treated him with more courtesy, explaining that they were just following orders. The pilot asked to use their radio and, once they surrendered it, spoke to their boss. Soon afterward, the soldiers released everyone, including Awuah. Shaken, he walked away with an important insight: 4 MacArthur Foundation, “Education Entrepeneur Patrick Awuah, 2015 MacArthur Fellow,” YouTube, published September 28, 2015, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkBD3Dhf1pg], accessed January 2016. 5 Ghana Web, “History of Ghana,” GhanaWeb.com, [http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/history/], accessed January 2016; Donna J. Maier, “Ghana,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, [http://www.britannica.com/place/Ghana/Independence], accessed May 2016. 6 Brier Dudley, “Ghana native left Microsoft to sow seeds in African Ivy League,” The Seattle Times, September 14, 2003, [http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=20030914&slug=ghana14], accessed January 2016). Hereafter referred to as “Brier Dudley.” 7 TED Talks, “Patrick Awuah: Educating a new generation of African leaders,” August 8, 2007, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-KfKxCaDVA], accessed January 2016. Hereafter cited as “Patrick Awuah TED talk.” 2 Ashesi University: The Journey From Vision to Reality DRAFT authority could and should be questioned. Those men were acting on the misguided orders of a superior officer. "It was important not to look at those guns," Awuah explained.8 By 1983, the Ghanaian economy was on the brink of bankruptcy and Awuah feared he would not be able to go to college at all, much less attend a university abroad. The PNDC had implemented an Economic Recovery Program (ERP) that called for radical austerity and drastic price controls. The first phase was set in motion that year and although the program would eventually lead to slow economic growth, it was precipitated by extreme poverty and high unemployment rates.9 "We ate twice a day instead of three times," he recalled. “In 1983, I was hungry most of the time.” Then, in the spring of 1984, a letter came in the mail that offered Awuah an escape route. He’d been accepted to Swarthmore on an almost full-tuition scholarship, the remainder being four hundred dollars. While this was a small sum relatively speaking, the family was in dire straits and couldn’t afford to pay it. This prompted the U.S. Embassy to reject his visa application and, for a brief period, it seemed that his dream of studying abroad was just out of reach. When Swarthmore got wind of the situation, however, they made an exception and agreed to cover Awuah’s share of the tuition.10 In the fall of 1985, Awuah packed his bags and set out for America with only $50 to his name.