A team of three from the West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI) comprising the Director, Prof. Eric Y. Danquah and the Coordinators for Teaching and Research Programmes, Dr. Agyemang Danquah and Dr. Daniel Dzidzienyo, paid an exploratory visit to Cornell University
from February 24-28, 2014 to hold discussions on potential curriculum development opportunities between Cornell University and WACCI, as well as plan for the three NEXTGEN Cassava PhD students at WACCI.
The WACCI delegation met the leadership of the International Programs office of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (IP-CALS), comprising Ronnie Coffman (the Director), Sarah Evanega (Senior Research Associate), Stefan Einarson (Information Technology Director), Hale Tufan (Project Manager, NextGen Cassava Project) and Vernon Gracen, Emeritus Professor at Cornell, who also serves as an Associate Director at WACCI. Discussions held were mainly on sustaining WACCI beyond the AGRA funding phase. The delegation from WACCI together with leadership of IP-CALS, led by Ronnie Coffman paid a courtesy call on the Senior Associate Dean of CALS, Dr. Max John Pfeffer. The Dean was pleased with developments at WACCI. Discussions were held on how to strengthen the existing collaborations between WACCI and Cornell University.
Professor E.Y Danquah delivered a seminar to an audience from the Cornell University community at the Mann Library on Training plant breeders at WACCI for the future of food security in West and Central Africa. Attendees were generally impressed with developments at WACCI judging from interactions after the presentation. The Director interacted with a number of faculty and students after the seminar. The delegation from WACCI also met with staff of the Albert Mann Library and The Essential Electronic Agricultural Library (TEEAL) project.
The WACCI team held fruitful interactive sessions with Dr. Mark Sorrells, Professor and Chair of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, CALS, and Dr. Margaret Smith, Dr. Tim Setter, Dr. Susan McCouch, Dr. Edward Buckler, Dr. Lisa Earle, Dr. Michael Mazourek, all of the Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics, CALS. The delegation from WACCI also met with Dr. Jean-Luc Jannink, Dr. Michael Gore, Dr. Walter De Jong, and Dr. Charles Taylor, all of CALS. Discussions covered module delivery, diversification of donor sources and curriculum development. Dr. Theresa Fulton, Director of Education and Training, Institute for Genomic Diversity and Dr. Lucas Mueller, Assistant Professor, BT, also had fruitful discussions with the WACCI team.
The West Africa Centre for Crop Improvement (WACCI), a partnership between the University of Ghana (UG) and Cornell University, USA was established in June 2007 with funding from the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) to train Plant Breeders in a PhD programme at the University of Ghana.