FULTON, MO – It was evident what special value Benjamin Ola Akande brings as the 21st president of Westminster College during his installation on Saturday, October 31.
Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton delivered the keynote address, giving a detailed argument why Akande possesses the necessary traits of a successful president and affirming that they would “strengthen the partnership” between Westminster College, with nearly 1,000 students, and the state’s most elite university.
Abiola Ajimobi, the executive governor of Oyo State in Akande’s home country of Nigeria, announced an academic partnership between Westminster College and Oyo State, which funds and oversees Samuel Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, a public university in Ogbomoso in southwest Nigeria. Oyo State also funds other colleges and universities within its geographic boundaries.
Ajimobi said the new partnership will enable the college and university to exchange students and faculty. The focus will be on information technology, cybersecurity and the sciences.
“This partnership will help our students become globally competitive, and enable them to improve their communities in Nigeria,” Ajimobi said.
The academic partnership – Westminster College’s first student-and-faculty exchange program in Africa, and its first with an international government – will become effective in September 2016.
“That’s what the Board of Trustees hired me to do,” Akande told The American. “That’s what I do. I strengthen colleges by growing them. I have a full mandate.”
Most recently, Akande was business dean and head of corporate partnerships for Webster University. The namesake of Webster’s business school, Ambassador Bert Walker, was among the power hitters in Akande’s inner circle who traveled to Fulton, Missouri, for two days of installation events. Former Gov. Bob Holden and Washington University Chancellor Emeritus Bill Danforth, a former Westminster student, also attended.
The festivities saw the college’s impressive Churchill Singers – named after its most famed guest lecturer, Sir Winston Churchill, who gave his Iron Curtain speech here in 1946 – learn new repertoire in Yoruba, Akande’s native tongue, and sing over African drums.
Fulton’s population of some 13,000 is 12 percent black, according to the city’s website, and Westminster’s student body is about 5 percent black, according to Forbes. But for the weekend, the campus and town had a Nigerian flavor, as Akande’s large family turned out in rich African attire, including his parents, the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. S.T. Ola Akande, of Ibadan, Nigeria. Many women dressed in brightly colored native geles (Nigerian head ties), iros (long, wrapping skirts) and bubas (matching blouses).
LeRoy Benton, mayor of Fulton, praised the city’s newest leader, saying of Akande that “his vitality is invigorating and exciting, as is his collaborative attitude.”
Akande is the 165-year-old college’s first African-American president and the first Nigerian-born president of a liberal arts college in the United States. The perception of making history and starting an era of change at the college was not lost on the students. Molly C. Dwyer, president of the Student Government Association, spoke on behalf of the student body.
“What is happening today, not every student who attends Westminster gets to experience,” Dwyer said. “You are all part of the transformation of the college.”
