By Mary Beth Roach
Growing up in a fishing village in Ghana, Agatha Awuah learned the power of education. She would go on to become a first-generation college student and graduate. The lessons she learned throughout her educational journey have inspired her work with at least two institutions of higher learning in New York state, more recently Onondaga Community College.
Today, she serves as OCC’s vice president for institutional planning, innovation, research and strategy. As such, her office is responsible for gathering the pertinent data and overseeing the strategic planning for the college; its operational plans and enrollment admissions; and reporting to the federal government, the state of New York and the SUNY system, of which OCC is a part.
With her background and expertise (Ph.D. in economics and a master’s degree in statistics), she could have had any number of jobs in the financial world — and she joked that she has even been asked why she’s not on Wall Street — but she opted to enter the academic arena for a very simple reason.
“Education is what brought me here,” she said. “I felt like my story was very much like the students here.”
She has been in the college educational field for decades. She has 30 years of teaching and administrative experience, including 26 years as an institutional researcher. She has been at OCC for 21 years, 13 years of those in an executive leadership role.
Before coming to OCC, Awuah worked at Binghamton University as a research analyst at both the Student Financial Aid and Employment Office and the Office of Institutional Planning and Research. She served as the immediate past president, president, vice president and community college representative of the SUNY Association for Institutional Planning Officers (SUNY AIRPO) and she has made scholarly presentations at SUNY AIRPO and the Association for Institutional Research.
As a young girl, one of her teachers saw her proficiency in mathematics and enlisted the support of other teachers to help fund her sixth form education. Sixth form education in Ghana is defined as the upper secondary stage that offers advanced, specialized study leading directly to university or professional training.
Awuah would go on to earn a number of degrees, including a Ph.D. in economics with specialization in development economics and econometrics from Michigan State University; a master’s degree in statistics from Michigan State University; and a master’s degree in economics from Queen’s University, Canada. She graduated from University of Ghana with double honors in economics and statistics.
According to an online article by the college this past spring that celebrated OCC’s female leaders, “Dr. Awuah has been the architect behind OCC’s culture of evidence-based decision-making and a staunch supporter of data democratization and making pertinent college data readily available to all college stakeholders. She has championed data-informed decision-making, which has been a catalyst for student success at OCC.”
During her tenure at OCC, she has overseen and participated in the development of four strategic plans and three successful Middle States reaccreditation processes and she served as the co-chair of the Achieving the Dream Data Team, which is a collaboration of community colleges that analyzes student achievement data, identifies gaps and studies efforts to close those gaps and improve student success.
OCC announced this past March that it was one of 36 colleges selected as an Achieving the Dream (ATD) Leader College, a distinction presented by the ATD that demonstrates sustained, measurable improvements in student outcomes and her work was instrumental in securing this title.
Just as her belief in the power of education fueled her passion, she harnesses that power to benefit younger generations.
Read about more Women in Education:
• Rhonda Zajac: Women’s Role in Education Shifts to Leading
• Sarah Gaffney: A product of the SUNY system, she has overseen a steady growth in enrollment at OCC
• Erica Hall: Program director is involved in developing curriculum, enrollment, community awareness and forming partnerships
• Jennifer King-Reese: Educator is proud of fostering greater communication among the district’s schools and employees
• Linda LeMura: She became a trailblazer in 2014 as the first lay female president of a Jesuit college in the U.S.
• Jennifer Nichols: From student to dean, administrator is settling into new position
• Kirsten Nielsen: As the founder of the physical therapist assistant program, she now serves as both its director and an instructor
• Amanda Petrie: P-TECH principal is following in her grandmother’s footsteps
• Lindi Quackenbush: Her father once observed she had more degrees than a thermometer
• Jennifer L. Ross: Interim dean was once told that she couldn’t do advanced math because she was a girl
• Donna Runner: Her mother’s commitment to education spurred superintendent’s success
• Naomi Ryfun: A love of teaching: A journey from biochemistry to education
