Morehouse College International Spring Tour heads to Ghana & Senegal
(Students - L to R): Olufemi Yessoufou, William Barnes, Odein Karibi-Whyte, Tyler Greene, Hasani Comer, Jared Holt, Mekhi Perrin, Divine Linus, Mark Nichols, Bryan Issac Duncan, and Demetrius Dumas. (Students not pictured) Michael Henry and Markal Kelly. (Faculty/Staff – L to R) Douglas Cooper, Priscilla Hubbard, Consuella Bennett, and Avery Williams. (Faculty/Staff not pictured) Brock Mayers and Maria Gabriela Piscopo.
Morehouse College has announced its 2023 International Spring Tour, making it the 34th edition of the annual tradition. Thirteen of the College’s best students, accompanied by six faculty and staff members will travel to Accra, Ghana and Dakar, Senegal from March 10, 2023 to March 19, 2023.
The tour location was originally scheduled for 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Morehouse contingent will interact with senior level management and staff of international corporations, Citi Bank and Coca Cola, two of the world’s most recognizable brands, and will also meet with representatives of the American Embassy in Ghana.
In addition, the group will visit the Slave Fortresses of Elmina Castle along the Coast of Ghana as well as Goree Island off the coast of Dakar, Senegal, known for the “Door of No Return”.
This year’s visit holds particular significance, as it is a part of the “The Decade of African Renaissance” – 2020-2030. It is following up Ghana’s “Year of Return” campaign held in 2019, that commemorated the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of the first recorded enslaved Africans in Jamestown, Virginia in 1619.
The College selected its 2023 tour participants “from a pool of highly qualified candidates across campus, that gave a challenging process to the selection committee,” said the school to TheAfricanDream.net. The selection was based on the “quality of the research paper submitted, grade point average, scholastic honour and distinction, and extracurricular involvement. The students who were ultimately chosen are only a sample of the high caliber of students that Morehouse College produces.”
The Spring Tour was developed and implemented in 1982 by Dr. James Hefner, originally designed to allow accounting students to visit banking and accounting firms as well as graduate schools. However, in 1985, it received a broader scope and was taken international by Dr. John Williams; it was nurtured until 2007 by Mr. Benjamin P. McLaurin, Director of Career Counselling & Placement.
A 34-year old tradition
The purpose of the tour has evolved to exposing Morehouse students to global business customs and practices and to assist them in contrasting foreign customs and practices to domestic ones.
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Since its origin, students from various academic disciplines have been allowed to participate in the Tour. The Spring Tour has travelled to the following places in the noted years below.
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| YEAR | LOCATION | YEAR | LOCATION |
| 1982 | New York, NY | 1990 | New York, NY. Cairo, Egypt |
| 1983 | Chicago, IL | 1991 | San Francisco, CA; Hawaii |
| 1984 | Boston, MA; Philadelphia, PA | 1992 | Madrid, Spain. Casablanca, Morocco |
| 1985 | Brussels, Belgium; Rome, Italy; Paris, France; London, England | 1993 | Crete – Santorini – Athens, Greece |
| 1986 | Tokyo, Japan; Hong Kong. Seoul, South Korea | 1994 | Paris – Nice, France |
| 1987 | Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France | 1995 | Hong Kong; Singapore |
| 1988 | Hong Kong; Singapore. Bangkok, Thailand | 1996 | Geneva, Switzerland. Florence, Italy |
| 1989 | Rio de Janeiro – Sao Paulo, Brazil; Buenos Aires, Argentina | 1997 | Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Cape Town – Johannesburg, South Africa |
| 1998 | Auckland, New Zealand. Sydney, Australia | 2007 | Hong Kong – Beijing, China |
| 1999 | London, England; Oslo, Norway; Stockholm, Sweden; Copenhagen, Denmark | 2008 | Dubai, U.A.E. Mumbai – Agra, India |
| 2000 | Lisbon, Portugal; Barcelona, Spain; Rome, Italy | 2009 | Budapest, Hungary; Prague, The Czech Republic; Vienna, Austria |
| 2001 | Beijing – Shanghai, China | 2010 | London, England; Edinburgh, Scotland; Dublin, Ireland |
| 2002 | No Tour (International Terrorism Alert) | 2011 | Casablanca, Morocco; Istanbul, Turkey; Paris, France |
| 2003 | No Tour (International Terrorism Alert) | 2012 | Rio de Janeiro – Salvador – Sao Paulo, Brazil |
| 2004 | Chicago, IL; Vancouver, Canada; Mexico City, Mexico | 2013 | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore |
| 2005 | Paris, France; Athens, Greece | 2014 | Barcelona, Spain; Rome, Italy |
| 2006 | San Jose, Costa Rica. Santiago, Chile. Buenos Aires, Argentina | 2015 | Panama City, Panama; Bogota, Colombia |
| 2016 | Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria South Africa | 2017 | London, England; Berlin, Germany |
| 2018 | Sydney, Australia; Auckland, New Zealand | 2019 | Hong Kong, China; Bangkok, Thailand |
| 2023 | ACCRA, GHANA; DAKAR, SENEGAL | 2020-2022 | No Tour – COVID 19 Travel Restrictions |
2023 selected students
- William Barnes (Senior) – Economics
- Markal Kelly (Senior) – International Studies
- Hasani Comer (Senior) — Communications
- Divine Linus (Senior) – Mathematics
- Demetrius Dumas (Senior) – Software Engineering
- Mark Nichols (Senior) – Economics
- Bryan Duncan (Junior) — Economics
- Mekhi Perrin (Junior) – Philosophy
- Tyler Greene (Junior) – Sociology
- Odein Karibi-Whyte (Junior) – Psychology
- Michael Henry (Senior) – Political Science
- Olufemi Yessoufou (Senior) – Business Marketing
- Jared Holt (Senior) – Economics
Faculty and Staff
- Mr. Douglas Cooper – Executive Director – Office of Career Development & Engagement
- Dr. Consuella Bennett – Professor – English
- Dr. Priscilla Hubbard – Assistant Director – Office of Career Development & Engagement
- Dr. Brock Mayers – Dean of Students
- Dr. Maria Piscopo – Professor – Business Administration
- Dr. Avery Williams – Professor – Cinema, Television & Emerging Media Studies
Douglas Cooper, the Executive Director at the Office of Career Development & Engagement in Morehouse College was full of thanks to TheAfricanDream LLC, a US-based information and communication research consultancy, for the help it gave the college in its travel preparations especially for the Ghana tour.
On his part, the founder of TheAfricanDream LLC, Oral Ofori remarked that “we were just doing our jobs, and are very blessed to have had great clients this year in the filed of education like Morehouse and Virginia State University, both of which are headed to Ghana on what promises to be very laudable projects. We can’t wait to share with the world how these trips went for these respective educational institutions in the US and how they benefited from their interaction in Senegal and especially Ghana.”
Morehouse College is a private historically black men’s liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia (GA), in the United States. Anchored by its main campus of 61 acres near downtown Atlanta, the college has a variety of residential dorms and academic buildings east of Ashview Heights, GA.
Source: Arakunrin Lekan for TheAfricanDream.net
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Abeeb Lekan Sodiq is a Managing Editor & Writer at theafricandream.net. He is as well a Graphics Designer and also known as Arakunrin Lekan.
