Re-visit: returning; reconsidering

May 2012
scholarship award ceremony
Ricks Institute

  In February 2007 I made my first trip to Ricks Instistute, Ricks Institute, a K-12 boarding school about fifteen miles from Liberia's capital, Monrovia. I came to Liberia at the urgings of my former student, Olu Q. Menjay (far left in the photo) who recently had return to his homeland to become Principal at Ricks.

  My initial trip was exploratory. I knew of Liberia's civil wars that crippled a once thriving nation. Olu introduced me to Liberia in the mid-1990s while he was a student at Mercer University. Since then we have forged a fast friendship that has blossomed into a partnership between Ricks Institute and Mercer.

  Since 2007 I have returned to--revisited--Ricks Institute seven times. Most of the return trips were part of Mercer on Mission, an ambitious University-funded project that allows scores of Mercer students to study and engage in service learning in developing countries during the summer. Once I came with a group from the First Baptist Church of Christ. This time--my eighth trip--I am alone.

  In future posts I will revisit my short history with Ricks Institute and how Mercer has invested in the school even as Mercer advances its creative mission of higher education beyond traditional patterns of teaching and learning. For now I offer some markers of progress and change:

• President William Underwood agreed, in 2008, to extend full scholarships to qualified students from Ricks Institute, with the understanding that upon the completion of an undergraduate degree those students would return to Liberia and to Ricks Institute for a two year term of service.
• The scholarships now bear the name of Sam Oni, a pioneer in Mercer's efforts in the 1960s to break the norms of segregation in higher education in Georgia.
• Since 2009 eleven Liberian students have been awarded Mercer scholarships. The photo above shows the 2012 Sam Oni scholars Isaac Mussah, Bendu Sherman, and Mohammed Dukuly (l-r). "IBM," as we call them, collectively, joined Edmond Cooper, Massa Mamey, Boakai Mamey, and Cherry Neal who continue to work toward degrees in Mercer's undergraduate colleges in Macon, Georgia.
• Olu Q. Menjay completed a PhD. in Church History at the University of Wales and was named to the faculty of The Roberts Department of Christianity with the understanding that his tenure at the University would be tied to his efforts to build and strengthen the partnership between Ricks Institute and Mercer University.

  My time in Liberia has transformed the time I spend everywhere else! Day-by-day I learn from the Liberian Children (my term of affection for them) at Mercer. I have regular contact with staff, faculty, and students at Ricks.

  Not surprisingly, my professional interests also have been transformed by my Liberian adventures. Here I am in Liberia once again. This time I arrived with a satchel of books and a research agenda that will occupy me for nearly two months as I am "theologian in residence" on the Ricks Institute campus.

  My focus is the life and work of Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), a well known figure in Liberian history: he was, for example, a President of Liberia College (now the University of Liberia), and held a number of political appointments, including Secretary of State, and Ambassador to England and to France.

  Specifically. I am eager to immerse myself in Blyden's writings, to visit sites where he taught, preached, and served Liberia and the larger world of his day, and attempt to discern his theological bearings that shaped his legacy of social activism. Blyden was ahead of his time as an advocate for the education of "girls" and the Liberian "Aborigines." He was, too, an early proponent of religious pluralism (although that term would surprise him, I think). His life in Liberia put him in contact with Muslims; his life abroad, including western Europe, introduced him to "Hindoos" (as he called them) and Buddhists.

  Let the revisitation begin!