The immediate past President of the Graduate Students Association of Ghana (GRASAG), UCC Chapter, Mr. Seth Odame-Mensah, has called on the new executives of the association to be united and focused in their quest to serve their members. Mr. Odame-Mensah said this when he handed over the leadership mantle of GRASAG to Mr. Benjamin Sundeme, at a ceremony held at the Main Auditorium. The newly-elected executives of GRASAG were sworn into office at the ceremony The former GRASAG President said despite all the challenges his team faced, they were always united to work together to deliver their campaign promises. “Your human relation skills must be on top as a team even in the toughest of times. What kept my team going was the ability to manage in unity, we had our trials, scandals and challenges but because we were united you never heard about much quarrels,” he charged the new president and his executives. “Whiles we were grappling to deal with challenges from the system to achieve our goals, much distractions were also being orchestrated by some of our colleagues who, instead of coming on board to help find solutions to the problems, were rather trying to gain prominence by disseminating false ideas and deliberately appealing to the deepest hate responses within the human minds,” he noted. Mr. Odame-Mensah therefore, appealed to members of the association to stop such attitude which according to him was causing unnecessary tension in students’ politics. According to Mr. Odame-Mensah his team made great strides during their term in office. Among the achievements he catalogued were organising research training; introducing Graduate Empowerment Summit, maiden disbursement of research funds to members and International Women’s’ day celebration seminar. Others included part payment of school fees policy; Graduate Assistantship programme; refund of medical bills to students; Representation on the Graduate Hostel Management Board and Lobbying of SRC to support GRASAG Research Fund. On behalf of the former executives, he congratulated Mr. Sundeme and the other executives on their successful election and pledged to support the new president and his team whenever the need arose. Speaking at the ceremony, the new President, Mr. Sundeme expressed gratitude to members for the show of confidence and exceptional mandate conferred on him and the other executives. He also thanked his predecessor, the past Senate Chair and Senators, Chief Justice and members of the Judicial Council of GRASAG. The President of GRASAG assured members of the association that his team would do its best to restore confidence and trust in members have lost in the association. He implored the new leadership of Senate and Senators, Chief Justice and prospective members of various committees of the association to stand out in the discharge of their duties. He also extended a hand of invitation to all those who contested in various positions but could not make it to come on board to work towards the forward match of GRASAG. Mr. Sundeme noted that under his term of office, he would build stronger ties between GRASAG and the School of Graduate Studies to find solution to challenges postgraduate students face in UCC. “I always say that student leaders can never fight management in finding solution to the challenges of their followers but rather, we must cajole them by putting up good cases and fostering warm relations,” he added. The Vice-Dean of Students, Dr. Eugene Darteh, who was the guest of honour at the function commended GRASAG for conducting a peaceful election. He praised Mr. Seth-Odame and his team for their dedicated service to the association and the cordial relationship they established with management whilst in office. He urged the past executives to ensure that they complete their thesis and for that matter their programme of studies on schedule noting that “you must distinguish yourself not only in student leadership but also in academics because that is the only evidence that you’ve successfully completed your postgraduate studies”. Dr. Darteh advised the current executives to learn how to relate well with the School of Graduate Studies in particular and the University management in general so that they would achieve their objectives for the association and also have their grievances addressed. He noted that the University would always apply the rules and regulations in the students’ handbook whenever appropriate however, “nobody in management is happy to apply a rule that will negatively affect students.” The function was chaired by the Vice-Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, Prof. Kankam Boadu. Present were President of the Students Representative Council (SRC), Mr. Tony Arthur and other executives of the SRC and National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) UCC chapter.

The University of Cape Coast (UCC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Gujarat Forensic Sciences University, Gandhinagar India. The agreement would, among other provisions, strengthen the capacity of faculty members in UCC’s Department of Forensic Sciences and offer advanced training opportunities for Ghanaian students in the field of forensics. A key feature of the agreement is the establishment of an Institute of Forensic Sciences at UCC. The Gujarat Forensic Sciences University (GFSU) is the world’s first and only University dedicated to Forensics and Allied Sciences, with an objective of training forensic experts to meet their increasing demand in India and globally. GFSU is a State University with advanced and specialized postgraduate academic programmes. The Director General (Vice-Chancellor) of GFSU, Dr. J.M. Vyas who is also the Director of the Gujarat State Directorate of Forensic Sciences, a state-of-the-art ISO/IEC 17025:2005 accredited laboratory of international repute – expressed his excitement with the collaboration and the prospects of helping UCC build a Forensic Institute that could serve as a Centre of Excellence in Forensic Science education for the West African sub-region and by extension, Africa. He emphasized the need to train students and build capacity of law enforcement officers and personnel in the judicial services to expedite crime prevention, prosecution and management. The University of Cape Coast was represented by a three-member delegation led by the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor George K.T. Oduro. Other members were Dr. Richmond Afoakwah, the head of Forensic Sciences Department, and Mr. Dan Osei Mensah Bonsu, an Assistant Lecturer of the Department. Speaking on behalf of the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Oduro appreciated the collaborative gesture of GFSU. He further noted that the difficulty faced by Ghana´s judicial system was due to limited expertise in forensics. Citing the Melcom disaster and recent market fires for which Ghana sought expertise from Israel and the US, he recounted the huge costs involved in such an approach, and the attendant difficulty of potentially revealing sensitive national intelligence to foreign experts. In his opinion, most criminal cases still pending in Ghana’s courts would have been easily adjudicated but for lack of adequate forensic evidence. Prof. Oduro reiterated management’s commitment to the promotion of quality forensic sciences education in UCC and emphasized that resourcing the Forensic Sciences Department is a priority for management. “We are very positive that this MoU would help us collaborate in areas of mutual interest in forensics, and we hope to tap your expertise to build forensic and investigative services in Ghana to a level of an enviable international repute”, Prof. Oduro stressed. On his part, Dr. Afoakwah indicated that he was “very optimistic of the success of this partnership with the only forensic science university in the world” and would “work hard to achieve all objectives spelt out in the MoU”. Other officials of GFSU who witnessed the signing of the MOU were the Registrar, Mr. Shri Chhatrapalsinh D. Jadeja, the Director of the Institute of Forensic Science, Dr. M.S. Dahiya, the Deputy Director, Directorate of Forensic Science (Home Department, Government of Gujarat) and the International Academic Advisor (GFSU), Mr. Ravish Shah.