Vol. 38, No. 18

2-2-2006
By: Julia Harris

Africa to OSU: Cross-cultural experience opens ATI eyes and hearts

D. Elder considers herself a bit of a missionary. As an associate professor of humanities and social science at Ohio State's Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, she feels strongly about broadening the horizons of students focused on the more technical aspects of their chosen fields. "With a two-year technical school like ours, students are not as interested in courses not in their majors," Elder observed.

One of the ways she gets her message across is by helping, with Associate Professor of Speech and Communications Linda Houston, to coordinate ATI's annual summer study tour in Ghana. Students who take the tour spend a number of weeks immersed in African culture and performing service tasks in places such as regional dental clinics and farming cooperatives. Stateside, Elder also organizes the quarter-long visits of African musician Divine Kwasi Gbagbo to ATI.

Elder met Gbagbo, who has a master's degree in African music and teaches music and English at a Ghanaian girls' school, on one of her study trips to the African continent. She was so impressed with his skill that last year she invited him to come teach a world music class at ATI.

"In addition to teaching the course here, Divine worked with many different groups in our community," Elder recalled. "He set up a Ghanaian festival at a local church, he gave three lectures for various music classes at Kenyon College and he taught drumming to first- and fifth-graders at various elementary schools. He really became part of the community."

The success of the visit is evident by the fact that Gbagbo is back in Wooster for a second quarter, teaching a course at ATI on African music that will include learning to play Bobobo drums and an African flute. He will also guest lecture in other classes on Ghanaian culture, especially in the areas of religion, agriculture and family life. Another important stop, said Elder, will be the second-grade classroom where most of his former first-grade devotees eagerly await a reunion.

Taken together, the annual Ghana service-learning tour and the contributions of Gbagbo have helped introduce ATI students to a cultural world far outside their normal experience. It's a trend that Elder, for one, welcomes. "The world is encroaching more and more even on small-town America," she noted. "I believe we're helping to internationalize not just ATI, but our whole community as well."

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