OU alum, now Liberian official, kicks off OU International Week
By Maria Gallucci
May 15, 2008
This year’s International Week opened Monday with one man’s journey from the dusty paths of Liberia to the hills of Athens and back again.
Marcus Dahn’s keynote address, “A Long Road from Nimba,” reflected on his experiences as an Ohio University student and the ways he uses his education to develop his native Liberia. Dahn earned his doctorate and master’s degrees from OU and now serves as deputy minister of administration in the Liberian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.
“It is important to let people know where I came from, how I got here and what I received here, and how I’m utilizing it to help the village,” he said of OU and his Liberian village, Nimba.
OU President Roderick McDavis opened the keynote address by honoring President Emeritus Charles Ping for his contributions to international education at the university.
“Because of his leadership and passion, international education became a part of the fabric of the OU academic experience,” McDavis said at the address. “He eloquently articulated it as a priority mission for the entire university and Athens communities and championed global education as an educational imperative in an era of inter-dependency.”
During Ping’s 1975-1994 tenure, overseas exchanges with OU grew to more than 120 partnerships in nearly every part of the world, he said. In 1980, OU and the Malaysian government established the Tun Razak chair, providing senior Malaysian scholars with two-year residencies in Athens.
In 1983, OU established the Ohio Valley International Council, mobilizing international students as cultural consultants in regional public schools.
Ping, a former professor of Dahn, said any teacher would rather be known by his students than by anything else. Dahn cited in his address Ping’s contributions to educational systems in Namibia and other African countries.
Dahn explained that when he first left Liberia for the United States, his mother reminded him that his ultimate duty was to return home and improve the lives of Liberia’s people.
“I had a lot of opportunities to remain in the U.S. and work,” he said in a later interview. “Those words became my guiding principle for wanting to go home and do what I could, despite the dangerous circumstances that existed in those days.”
“There is a saying that if you don’t know where you come from, it will be very difficult for you to determine where you’re going,” he added. “You have to know your roots, and you have to appreciate where you come from, where you were born and the people who helped make you what you are.”
As a young man, Dahn was beaten and jailed twice in Liberia for what he described as trivial activities under then-President William V. S. Tubman. In 1974, he helped found the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) political party. After a 1979 protest in Liberia’s capital city Monrovia against increases in rice prices, the Liberian government listed Dahn as wanted dead or alive.
Dahn first came to Athens in 1988, began his master’s program in 1989 and received his doctoral degree in 1994. On the steps of OU’s Memorial Auditorium in 2003, he announced his candidacy for the Liberian presidency. He returned to a war-torn Liberia later to serve as the deputy minister of education under Gyude Bryant, who was chairing Liberia’s interim government from 2003 until the 2005 elections.
In 2006, Dahn was appointed deputy minister for foreign affairs before he managed posts and telecommunications, his current position, in the administration of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the Liberian president and first female head-of-state in African history.
“’Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose,’” Dahn said, quoting former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.
“That is exactly why I serve enthusiastically in the new Liberia. Liberia is moving forward,” he said in his address, adding that because of his OU education, he is able to play a role in Liberia’s educational improvement.
One of Dahn’s top educational goals is to establish faculty-student exchanges between OU and universities in Liberia, particularly in areas of environmental studies and tropical medicine. OU’s expertise in designing, planning and implementing international education programs can help develop Liberian universities to educate the African citizenry, he said.
“A philosopher once said, ‘In the history of the world, no country has ever been developed without an educated mind,’” he said. “If you give that education, it is a weapon that (a person) can use… to first develop himself, his people and his nation. Once you get an education, nobody can take it away from you.”
Dahn appealed to his fellow Bobcats and Athenians to open their arms and eyes, and to inquire to learn about people from different parts of the world.
“Your strength lies in your diversity as a nation, as a people,” he said of the United States. “Therefore, open up and accept, embrace and celebrate, because this is your strength.”
“Appreciate International Week, because this is where you see the nearly 100 countries that are represented here in this little Athens. You can’t beat it."
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