PROVOST'S OFFICE

DeBrenna Lafa Agbényiga

The International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB) is uniquely positioned to transform education in West Africa through its commitment to engagement, collaboration, and innovation. It is what drew me to IUGB. 

Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire (July 11,2023)—International University of Grand-Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire, has announced the appointment of DeBrenna LaFa Agbényiga, Ph.D., MBA, MSW, as its new Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs following an international search. She will assume her position effective August 15, 2023. In this position, she will oversee all college operations directly pertaining to academic programming, academic administration, faculty, academic staff, recruitment, retention, enrollment, and student life.

Dr. Agbényiga is an Africanist scholar who has worked extensively in West Africa. A proven researcher in the fields of social science and business administration, she has more than 20 years of leadership, achievement, and service as a professor and administrator. Most recently, she worked as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs and full professor with tenure in the Department of Sociology at Stonehill College, Easton, Massachusetts and as a higher education consultant at Agbényiga Global Education. Prior to her consulting engagement, she served as Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bowie State University in Maryland, where she was also a full professor with tenure in the Department of Social Work.

She also served as Vice Provost and Dean of The Graduate School at the University of Texas at San Antonio, an emerging
Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), while maintaining tenure as a full professor in their Department of Social Work. At Michigan State University, Dr. Agbényiga held the position of Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and Inclusion in the
College of Social Science, as well as Associate Professor with tenure in the School of Social Work and the Department of Human Development and Family Studies.

“After meeting with Dr. DeBrenna Agbényiga, we are convinced that she is the right person to head IUGB’s academic affairs. Her skills and leadership will be beneficial to IUGB due to her extensive experience in various academic institutions in the U.S. We are confident that Dr. Agbényiga will help achieve our objectives and contribute to the advancement of our institution,” declared Prof. Saliou Touré, President of the International University of Grand Bassam.

“I was drawn to IUGB’s liberal arts and STEM academic environment and its focus on providing an American-style education in Côte d’Ivoire while serving as a model for transformational education in sub-Saharan Africa. I am eager to build on IUGB’s current successes with strategic planning, academic excellence, accountability, and opportunity. I look forward to working alongside President Touré, the Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, students, and other stakeholders to take IUGB to the next level with its new strategic plan and vision,” said Dr. Agbényiga.

Dr. Agbényiga holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in Social Work as well as a master’s degree in Business Administration from Michigan State University, Michigan, USA. She also holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice from the University of South Carolina at Columbia, South Carolina, USA.

The International University of Grand Bassam is an American-style University, formally established as an accredited institution of higher education in Cote d’Ivoire by government Decree 2007-477 of May 16, 2007. Its core values are excellence, accountability, and opportunity.

Fatima Doumbia Koné is a Mathematics lecturer at the international University of
Grand-Bassam (IUGB). Among the courses she taught we have the following: Introduction to
Differential Equations, Elementary Statistics, Calculus(I,II,III), Transforms in Applied Math,
Introduction to Linear Algebra, Operations Research and Abstract Algebra.
She has a Bachelor degree in Mathematics (IUGB), a Master degree in Pure and Applied
Mathematics (AUST) and she is currently enrolled for a PhD in Mathematics at the African
University of Science and Tecnology (AUST), Abuja. She has also been an intern at the
Institutional Banking Group department within GTBANK CI (Garanty Trust Bank Côte
D’Ivoire).
She is a former IUGB student and she was the president of the science club in 2015.
Academically, her goal is to be a great researcher and innovator on the topics of asymptotic
theories in Fuzzy Probability Theory and their various applications to image processing. She
has good programming skills (JAVA, LaTeX, C++) and she is bilingual (French and English).
Over the years, she has been developing a method of teaching which not only put students at
the center of the learning process but also which deconstruct most of the stereotypes about the
inaccessibility of mathematical knowledge to everybody.
Regarding her research activities, she has been working since 2018 on the topic of integration
on Banach spaces and a preprint of an interesting work is available at
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1905.04480. She is continuing with her research on integration but now
her PhD studies focus on Random Sets Integration in Probability Theory. Professionally, she
is a very active lecturer at IUGB and she is currently the faculty advisor of the SHE CLUB,
which aims at promoting women empowerment by providing learning, leadership and
networking opportunities.

I am currently Associate Professor of computer and data science in the school of science technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) at the International University of Grand-Bassam (IUGB).
From 2000 to 2018, I successively worked as a research scientist at Independent Computing Research in Montreal, Quebec, Canada; Assistant Professor at the department of computer science and
engineering at Université Laval in Québec, Canada; Research Associate at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) where I also received a Ph.D. degree in computer science in March 2000. Upon receiving a master's degree in mathematical and computing science
from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (TIT) in 1990 in Japan, I worked as a research scientist at National/Panasonic, one of the most prestigious companies in Tokyo.
I am involved in research on Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, Semantic Web and its applications in a wide range of fields. Besides, I designed the current Data Science program in effect
since September 2021 in STEM. In addition, I am also one the founders and current President of the
Ivorian Association of Artificial Intelligence and member of ORBICOM, the Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication headquartered in University of Quebec in Montreal (UQUAM), Canada.

Kwame Simpe Ofori is an Assistant Professor in Finance at the school of Business and Social Sciences. He holds a doctorate degree in Finance, a master’s degree in finance and a master’s degree in Telecommunications Technology. He is also currently a PhD student at the School of Management and Economics, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China. He has taught courses in the areas of finance, computer science, computer and electrical engineering, and telecommunication engineering. Before joining IUGB he lectured in several universities in Ghana. He also worked with Ghana Telecommunications Company as a support engineer. His research interests are in the areas of consumer behaviour, technology adoption and trust in online systems and in recent times financial econometrics. His papers have appeared in several CABS-ranked journals such as Information Technology and People, Journal of Cleaner Productions, Quality Management Journal, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, International Journal of Bank Marketing, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Journal of African Business, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology and Society and Business Review.