Professor Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe never grew up dreaming of becoming a professor.
Unlike children who confidently tell their parents they want to become doctors, lawyers or engineers, his path was less certain.
“I was not the kind of child who grew up, you know, thinking I was going to be a medical doctor or a lawyer. No, I had none of that. I was just going through the motions,” he recalled on Campus Exclusive.
Today, that same journey has taken him to the position of Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Development at the University of Ghana. Yet, his entry into academia was almost accidental.
After completing his national service at the Population Impact Project, a former University of Ghana staff member working there noticed how patiently he interacted with students who visited the project.
The staff member encouraged him to consider a career in academia.
“That was the turning point when I had a realisation,” Prof. Codjoe said.
He joined the Regional Institute for Population Studies (RIPS) as a lecturer in 2004. He later served as the Institute’s Director for six years before becoming Provost of the College of Education, a position he held for four years.
His journey to one of Ghana’s leading universities, however, had already taken him beyond the country’s borders.
He spent about five years in Oslo, Norway, where he learned Norwegian before pursuing his master’s degree. He later moved to the University of Bonn in Germany, where he completed his PhD in exactly three years.
When he joined RIPS, the Institute was going through a difficult period. Funding had declined, student enrolment had fallen, and there were concerns about its future.
At his interview, he was asked why he wanted to join an institution that many believed was struggling.
“And I remember at my interview, I was asked why I was going to an institution that was dying, and I told them that I could help revive it,” he recalled.
His research on the intersection of population, the environment and climate change became part of that effort, helping RIPS attract research grants, equipment and funding.
Years later, he is taking on a much broader responsibility.
As Pro Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Codjoe wants to strengthen the University’s research culture and, importantly, make research less intimidating and more accessible to the average student.
One of his key priorities is introducing an Undergraduate Research Experience Programme, which will expose students to the practical side of research through fieldwork, interviews, data collection and analysis.
“Research is for all. In every discipline, you can undertake research,” he said.
He wants students in the humanities, social sciences and the arts to see research and innovation as much their domain as they are for students in the natural sciences.
His plans also include establishing research and surveillance sites across Ghana’s different ecological zones, creating multidisciplinary research teams and helping more academics compete successfully for research funding.
He believes the University must become more intentional in this regard.
“You have to be on the pitch before you can score,” he said, explaining his desire to see more researchers respond to funding opportunities instead of simply letting them pass by.
For Prof. Codjoe, however, research is ultimately about people.
During his tenure at the College of Education, he discovered that some staff members had worked at the University for more than 25 years without having the opportunity to further their education.
He subsequently helped create opportunities for staff to pursue degree programmes, with about 35 members of staff now enrolled in various courses.
His leadership style, he said, is built on relationships.
“When you are leading people, you need to establish some kind of relationship with them. You need to sell your vision to them. They need to come along with you as you journey the path.”
Perhaps that is why his departure from the College of Education has been met with mixed emotions.
Some staff members, he said jokingly, prayed that he would not leave.
He told them to change their prayers and instead pray that he would “go up” so he could continue supporting them from his new position.
Away from the University, there is another side to the professor.
He married at the age of 24 and has now been married for more than three decades. He recalls the days before mobile phones, when visiting his girlfriend meant travelling from Legon to Odorkor without being able to call ahead.
Today, his wife remains one of his greatest sources of support. He says she sometimes wakes up at 1 a.m. to pray for him. That support will likely prove invaluable as he begins a new chapter with even greater responsibilities.
Prof. Codjoe has supervised about 34 PhD students, many of whom now work in different parts of the world.
Watching his students grow remains one of the aspects of academia he finds most rewarding.
“We have intellectual debates, we look at issues and consider how to proceed. For me, that has generated all the excitement.”
From a young man who never planned to become an academic to a professor who has spent decades building researchers and institutions, Prof. Codjoe’s latest appointment marks another step in a journey that began without a clear destination.
This time, however, he knows exactly where he wants to go—and he wants students and researchers across the University of Ghana to go there with him.
He is the professor who never planned to become one.
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Story by Mardiya Amin Laamoata | univers.ug.edu.gh
Edited by Gabriel Tecco Mensah
