MONROVIA – The Amos C. Sawyer College of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Liberia, is honored to be the recipient of two fully funded master’s scholarship from the Amos C. Sawyer Foundation. The scholarship is made possible thanks to Mrs. Thelma E. Duncan Sawyer, widow of Prof. Dr. Amos C. Sawyer. Her generous support to the College has allowed two of the 214 graduates of the 2022 class to pursue Master’s degree studies.
The two recipients are Miss Danielle Wornee, age 20, a graduate from the Department of Social Work with a BSW degree in Social Work and Miss Juma Patricia Sando, age 20, a graduate from the Department of Geography with a BA degree in Geography. Miss Wornee and Miss Sando were awarded the scholarships by the Chair of the Amos C. Sawyer Foundation and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for Administration, Mrs. Thelma E. Duncan Sawyer.
The two recipients were selected owing to their high academic performance in thesis oral defense and presentation, and academic excellence at Amos C. Sawyer College. Therefore, they were recommended by the College’s Thesis Committee headed by Assistant Prof. Alexander O. Teaway, Chair; Mrs. Roseline Tomah-Weah, Co-chair, while other members include Prof. Dr. D. Elliott Wreh-Wilson, Prof. Dr Nathaniel Gbessagee, Cllr. Mark Bedor-Wla Freeman, Mr. Roosevelt Tule, Mr. Abraham Fofana, Mr. Ernest Winderburk and Rev. Leviticus O. Kollie. The Dean of the College, Prof. Dr Josephus M. Gray served as Ex-officio to the Committee.
So far, 64 graduates from across six academic departments including History, Geography, English and Language Studies, Political Science, Communication and Media Studies and Social Work participated in the three weeks standard final thesis oral defense and presentation.
Miss Wornee in the academic contest came top of the class in the thesis defense while Miss Sando academically was named as a run-up (second best performed) to Miss Wornee, followed by Mr. D. Wilson Zawu of the Department of English, as the third best performed graduate. Miss. Wornee research focuses on : A Need for Social Services in Orphanages in Liberia: A Case Study of the St. Benetta Orphanage Home on Pipeline, Lower Johnsonville, Liberia. While Miss Sando research focus is: An Evaluation of Public Attitude and Behavior towards Waste Management in Red-Light, Gogbarchop Market.
Although Miss Wornee missed her group thesis defense and presentation due to then her poor health, she was given the opportunity by the Dean of the College to appear and face the academic jury for her defense and presentation. For others, Miss Wornee needed to be disqualified for her failures to appear with her group for the then thesis defense exercise, but the Dean used his wise decision to give her the benefit of the doubt.
This was the perfect movement for Miss Wornee as her high performance in the academic exercise then became the perfect icing on the cake for her when she was graded excellent by members of academic jury. Beyond reasonable doubts, her brilliance was matchless, by pulling off a clean 100 result having exhibited her academic intelligence and excellence, thus emerging as the Most Outstanding student of the 64 students that were evaluated independently by the thesis committee.
The undergraduate thesis covered five chapters including Chapter One which discusses the backgrounds of the study, problem statement, purpose and objectives, research questions, significance of the study, limitations and delimitation. Chapter Two is about the Literature reviews relating to the research problem.
While Chapter Three focuses on the research methodology, design, population and targeted population of the study, research instruments, sample size and sampling techniques used, data collection procedures and data analysis. The two last chapters, Four and Five discussed the data presentation, analysis, research findings, summary, conclusions, and recommendations.
Meanwhile, thesis defense and presentation have been dormant across the College for about 15 years, but the academic exercises was reactivated during the 2020-2021 academic school year line with best academic practices based on the philosophical version of the institution’s faculty-student centered President, Prof Dr. Julius Julukon Sarwolo Nelson, Jr. The college is now research-driven and seeks to advance new knowledge, explore issues and find answers to questions that contribute to the improvement of society.
The Dean of the College, Dr. Gray, with support from the institution is establishing a research annex in the college to aid faculty in their research. Prospective graduates would also be allowed to take advantage of the Research Annex to undertake their thesis and other research works. Press Release
