A portrait of Nelson Mandela. Photo: John Paul Henry, Unsplash
Story by Samantha Fariss, CHC Communications
“I want my students to walk away with empathy, resilience, and confidence because with those things, you can do anything,” professor A.B. Assensoh shared.
Assensoh is not just a professor within Clark Honors College teaching a course about political leadership throughout Africa; he is ensuring that his students walk away from the course with every skill and ounce of knowledge that they need to succeed.
From Ghana, Assensoh has traveled the world doing both journalistic and educational work which provides a solid background to create an oustanding course that gives students knowledge as well as empathy.
It's a unique approach to his course, “Biography as History: Analyzing African Political Leadership since the 1950s,” which focuses on politicians' lives and lived experiences in Africa. The class provides a students with a window into interesting and viable interdisciplinary issues through the stories and lives of a selected number of some of the continent’s foremost political players: Jomo Kenyatta (Kenya); Kwame Nkrumah (Ghana); Julius Nyerere (Tanzania); Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (Liberia) and, of course, the iconic Nelson Mandela (South Africa).
By using selected biographical and autobiographical texts explore the individual and contextual factors of African political leadership, Assensoh focuses on aspects of the early history, decolonization and post-independent periods.
To make “Biography as History” a completely inclusive experience, he makes sure that his students interact and are engaged with the class, pushing them to act as teacher assistants and lead class discussions, even allowing them to just share their thoughts through the chat function on Zoom.
Assensoh has incorporated L.A.C.E. exercises into every class – L.A.C.E. standing for love, authenticity, courage, and empathy.
The L.A.C.E. approach is where his desire for his students to retain courage and empathy roots from. He shared that he sees bright futures for his students, whether that means graduate school, law school, or medical school.
“The honors college has such wonderful students, brilliant, I want them to learn that one day (they) can become president. Maybe because of this course, one day UO will have a female alumni become the president of the United States!” Assensoh remarked with assurance and excitement.