The Pentecost University (PU) Council in consultation with the Executive Council of the Church of Pentecost, has inducted into office Reverend Professor Kwabena Agyapong-Kodua, as the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the University.Prof Agyapong-Kodua, a UK-based Ghanaian academic and a pastor of the Church of Pentecost was appointed Vice-Chancellor at the June 2020 General Council Meeting of the Church of Pentecost.
He was inducted by Apostle Eric Kwabena Nyamekye, Chancellor of PU, and he takes over from Apostle Dr Daniel Okyere Walker who had just completed serving his four-year tenure.In his acceptance speech, Rev Prof Agyapong-Kodua commended the Chairman of the Church of Pentecost who is also the Chancellor of PU, the Church’s International Mission Director, and the rest of the Church’s International Executives, the search committee and the University Council for appointing him into this noble office.
He said given PU’s new vision to become a distinguished Christian University known for its excellence in teaching, research and community impact, and the dynamic global need for graduates of a certain caliber “we need another kind of a university, a university that trains people to solve problems”.
Rev Prof Agyapong-Kodua, who becomes the University’s first VC upon the institution’s charter, emphasized that this would be a place where governments, communities, industries, families, churches, and all run to for help.He said his vision, therefore, was to help develop and maintain with the support of all stakeholders, a one-of-a-kind research-led University, to solve the problems of communities, industries, the nation, and the world at large.
The VC anticipated that by the end of his term, PU would become the one-place for solving problems; “industries are looking for such graduates; families and churches are looking for such; government is looking for such; these are the people, the one per cent of every generation, who transforms nations”.
Rev Prof Agyapong-Kodua said the vision would thrive on four major pillars; “A re-definition of who PU academics are; A repositioning of PU students; An effective problem-solving PU environment; and A dynamic PU solution Enabling System”.
The Vice-Chancellor was born in July 1979 in Kwahu Amanfrom in the Eastern Region.He attended Saint Peters School in Nkwatia, where he passed his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GSCE) A level.
He then proceeded to pursue a BSc degree in Mechanical Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.Upon graduation in 2000, he worked as a Design Engineer with GRATIS Foundation and later moved on to join Nestle Ghana Limited as a Manufacturing Systems Engineer.
He obtained his Masters and PhD in Advanced Manufacturing Systems Engineering and Management from the Wolfson School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at the Loughborough University in the UK.After his PhD, he was appointed by the University of Nottingham as a Research Fellow at the University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.After several years at the University of Nottingham where he rose to become a Senior Research Fellow, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Digital Engineering at the Warwick University in the UK, where he has taught and led research projects in areas of artificial intelligence, manufacturing designs and technology, innovative early-stage prediction tools and methods for optimal design solutions, and model-driven evolvable manufacturing since 2013.
Rev Prof Agyapong-Kodua is married to Vida Agyapong-Kodua and has three children.As part of the ceremony, the University also used the occasion to outdoor its new brand.It would be recalled that the University recently received a Presidential Charter, which now makes the institution of higher education, formerly known as Pentecost University College (PUC), a fully-fledged university.
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