Friday, April 25, 2025 Schedule
9:00am - 10:15am Session I: Africa and its Global Linkages
A Vision for Sustained Development & Partnerships between Black Americans and Liberians: An Autoethnographic Inquiry
Uzoma Miller, PhD, Assistant Professor of Instruction, Undergraduate Advising Coordinator, The Department of African American Studies, Ohio University
Liberian Students at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East
Alexander Shipilov, PhD, Institute of World History (the Russian Academy of Sciences)
Preserving Liberian Cultural Heritage with AI: A Journey with Multiple Frontiers
Emmanuel Dorley, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Florida; Kweku Yamoah, Faculty Intern, Ashesi University
Reconceptualizing Africa’s Regional Integration for Peace and Sustainable Development’
Tom Kaydor, Jr., PhD., International Development & Diplomacy Specialist, Professor, IBB Graduate School of International Studies, University of Liberia
10:15am - 11:30am Session II: Channeling Self-Portrayals and Perceptions of Liberian Women on Broadcast Television, Past and Present
Moderator: Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, PhD. Junior Research Group Leader “Africa Multiple” Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth
On Communities and Communication: Situating Liberia in African Media Studies
Cassandra Mark-Thiesen, PhD, Junior Research Group Leader “Africa Multiple” Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth
Representations of Liberian Women in Politics – Past, Present and Future
Tanya Ansahta Garnett, PhD, Adjunct Professor, University of Liberia’s IBB School for International Studies
Women Journalists and Self-fashioning on/in 80s Liberian Television
Edidiong Ibanga, Doctoral candidate, Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence, University of Bayreuth
11:30am – 12:30pm Session III: Gender, Politics and Citizenship
“We See What Men Don’t See”: Reflections of Women Cabinet Ministers from The Gambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone
Gretchen Bauer, PhD, Professor Comparative Politics, African Politics and Gender and Politics, University of Delaware
Women’s Political Rights and Representation as Proxies for Citizenship Equality in West Africa
Robtel Neajai Pailey, PhD, Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy, The London School of Economics and Political Science
Access to Finance, Micro Entrepreneurship, and Women’s Perceptions on the Use of Violence
Samuel Wai Johnson, Jr., PhD, American University School of International Service
1:30pm – 3:30pmSession IV: History, Language and Technology
Moderator:
Most…have their hearts set on returning to the Congo count[r]y”: Congo Recaptives on the Lutheran Muhlenberg Mission in 19th Century Liberia
Yolanda Covington-Ward, PhD, Professor and Department Chair, W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Herbert Brewer, PhD, Professor, Department of History, Geography and Museum Studies, Morgan State Univ.
A Historian among the Anthropologists: Reflections on the Invention of Tribes and the
Re-making of the Liberian State
Herbert Brewer, PhD, Professor, Department of History, Geography and Museum Studies, Morgan State Univ.
Writing Kolokwa: Issues in the creation of a standardized orthography
John Victor Singler, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, New York Univ.
Preserving Liberian Cultural Heritage with AI: A Journey with Multiple Frontiers
Emmanuel Dorley, PhD, Assistant Professor of Computer Science, Univ. of Florida; Kweku Yamoah, Faculty Intern, Ashesi Univ.
Kapingbdi and Social Change during the 1980s: a profile of social awareness raising
by Liberian artists. Tim Nevin, PhD., Educator and Historian
3:30pm – 4:30pm Session V: Leveraging Liberian History and Culture for National Cohesion, Sustained Development
Veda A. Nyoth Simpson
Women’s Rights Activist, Educator
Dawn Cooper Barnes
African Virtual Campus University (AVCU)
Dwede Tarpeh, Gender Officer
Embassy of Sweden Monrovia, Liberia
Barney J. Wilson, Ed. D.
V. President Institutional DevelopmentAfrican Virtual Campus University (AVCU)