GBARNGA, BONG County – Dr. Romelle Horton has been inducted as the 13th president of Cuttington University.
Delivering her investiture remarks Saturday, Dr. Horton said her administration is in the process of refreshing and reinventing the university’s strategic plans and partnership to transform the lives of future leaders of Liberia and the world.
By Selma Lomax
Considering the limited job opportunities for the growing Liberian population, Dr. Horton, Cuttington’s first female president, said Cuttington will focus on contributing to the economy.
She highlighted the inception of new programs, including the National and Dental Therapy program at Cuttington’s Masters School as her administration’s ongoing to the country’s economy.
Dr. Horton said she aspires to make Cuttington the lead in scholarly integrity, promising to light, feed and grow Cuttington. She reaffirmed her administration’s quest to launch a do doctoral program in 2023.
“The program is expected to be launched in January of 2023 with two tracks: Doctoral in Ministry (DMin) and Doctoral in Theology (ThD) and a significant amount of work is being done for the actualization of this program,” she maintained.
According to her, another program that has started is the Liberia Dental Therapy School something she said is another gap that they are filling, continuing, “We are in partnership with Trinity Dental at ELWA Hospital.
“This program actually started October 3rd, 2022 and it is a two-year program, and the students are going to graduate with an Associate of Applied Science Degree in Dental Therapy.”
She explained that the goal is to equip all 15 counties with dental hygienists and thus alleviate people coming to Monrovia for dental care and actually saving lives.
“We do not want us reverting to our youthful days where we used to put the thread on the door handle and pull our tooth out – yikes. This is what we are trying to do and we are thrilled to be in partnership with Trinity and Dr. Simon Stretton-Downes, who is the brains behind this and a strong advocate.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Horton further revealed that they have added a fifth school and it is called “The School of Global Affairs and Policy” as the Dean of that School is Elias B. Shoniyin, who worked at Liberia Foreign Ministry for many years.
She added, “In that School, they also award a degree in Sustainable Development, another program that only Cuttington offers in Liberia, and at that School, there are tracks for Hospitality Management and Tourism; International Relations; Foreign Service, and Diplomatic Studies, as well as several new programs, were also added to the School of Public Health; MSc. in Maternal Child Health, Public Health Nutrition, and others.”
Cuttington University is a private university in Suakoko, with campuses in Montserrado and other counties, including the School of Graduate and Professional Studies located in Congo Town opposite the headquarters of the CDC.
The school was founded in 1889 as Cuttington College and Divinity School through a donation from Robert Cutting of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States; it is the oldest private, co-educational, four-year, degree-granting institution in sub of the Saharan.
All about Dr. Romelle A. Horton:
Dr. Horton is a native of Liberia and a strong advocate for educational, developmental, gender equality, service-learning and refugee issues, and is currently the interim president of Cuttington University in Liberia, making her the First Female President in the University’s 133-year history.
She graduated Summa Cum Laude (Valedictorian) with a degree in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) from Voorhees College, a private Episcopal College in Denmark, South Carolina. And after graduation, she worked as a Solution Delivery Analyst with Accenture, LTD, a global consultancy for several years before pursuing graduate studies and obtaining an M.A. with Distinction, in International Service and Development at the University of Surrey, now Roehampton University, London.
She reviewed and edited the book, “Sustaining Liberia’s Peace”, authored by Olubanke King-Akerele and wrote the Prologue for the Questionnaire for Volume Two; she also wrote the Concept Note for and participated in the 2019 Queens Commonwealth Essay Competition and Awards Ceremony held at Buckingham Palace in October 2019.
She also chairs the Board of Trustees of Kids Educational Engagement Project (KEEP), an organization that is instrumental in building schools and reading rooms across Liberia; serves on the Board of EcoBank, Liberia, and as well a Human Development Panelist on Education at Warwick University’s Annual Africa Summit in the United Kingdom and authored of the 11 Chapter (Education) of the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Legacy Project now published.
She has a Ph.D. in Educational Administration and Leadership (Education Management) from the University of Botswana; was called to national duty and served as Deputy Minister for Inconstruction at the Ministry of Education, Chief Government Nominee for the West African Examination Council (WAEC), Liberia, Vice-Chairperson of WAEC, International, Vice President for Academic Support Services at AME University, and an African Women Academics in Research & Development (AWARD) Fellow.