Responsible Office: Academic Affairs; Office of Student & Community Affairs

Purpose: To openly share some of the benefits of Ashesi University with the general public

Outreach service and access at Ashesi University supports our academic mission by bridging scholarly research of faculty and students, their entrepreneurship, and service of students with communities to create better informed and more effective decisions for both parties. This provides opportunities for the less fortunate to have access to the Ashesi experience through hosted events and programs. It increases students and faculty empathy, their ethical behavior, and desire to care for others. These activities are accessible to all, regardless of ethnicity, religion, disability or gender.

As a University we carry out a number of community engagement activities throughout the academic year under the auspices of our different departments. In the context of community engagement, the term “service” is often used interchangeably with “outreach” to refer to the delivery of programs, expertise, resources and services beyond the Ashesi community.

Our vision of university access consists of a thriving partnership between faculty, staff, and students, on the one hand, and neighboring people and communities of Berekuso and beyond.  The communities are also inclusive of those associated with members of Ashesi University, faculty, students, and staff.  In the Ashesi vision, our people and their communities routinely make effective use of the resources of Ashesi University to serve their needs and help them solve their problems and improve the quality of their lives.

The providers of those resources within the University, the faculty and students, routinely and confidently commit portions of their time and expertise to outreach, secure in the knowledge that their work will be reliably assessed and rewarded within the institution and the broader academy. The University acts not only to maintain effective and efficient connections with established constituencies, but also to discover emerging constituencies to cultivate appropriate connections to them.

The university’s engagement is enhanced by its central presence in the community and accessibility to its facilities and services. Local area residents enjoy facilities, labs, events and many other world class resources which would otherwise not be found in communities this size. In these ways, Ashesi University enhances the overall quality of life for the surrounding community.

Ashesi is also committed to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.