Dr. Stephen K. Appiah-Paddi

Corporate Profile

As Vice-Chairman of ADC, Dr. Appiah-Padi brings vast experience in working with students and faculty, establishing and leading administrative offices, and managing several projects across different types of educational institutions including Ghana. Dr. Appiah-Padi is an experienced global education practitioner-scholar, highly skilled international education leader, mentor, and coach with decades of teaching and administrative experience in both 4 and 2-year higher education institutions, globally.

Dr. Appiah-Padi is currently serving as Director of Global Education and Off-Campus Education at Bucknell University providing leadership and vision in advancing strategic internationalization initiatives, international partnerships and study abroad programs including in his home country of Ghana. Two of Dr. Appiah-Padi’s degrees are from Ghana. Stephen’s Graduate Diploma is from the University of Ghana, Legon, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. In his role at Bucknell, Dr. Appiah-Padi oversees a major aspect of Bucknell University’s engagement with the world- enhancing the quality of Bucknell’s teaching and learning with the high-impact activity of study abroad. His interest in sustainability grows from his experiences working with students in underprivileged environments in Africa and other parts of the world. While travel is important for quality educational experience, it is also a major source of carbon emission.

In grappling with the dilemma of educational travel and its effect on the environment, Dr. Appiah-Padi joined forces with Dr. Udo of Bucknell’s Sustainability Center to continue discussion on Bucknell’s efforts towards carbon neutrality, and the need for a more holistic approach that would not only ensure Bucknell’s carbon neutrality by 2030 but also, by so doing, help repair to some extent, the damages its quest for quality education has caused to underprivileged areas, particularly in Africa. The choice to center ADC in Ghana and Nigeria was obviously due to Dr. Appiah-Padi and Dr. Udo’s experiences and local knowledge of the political and social environments in those countries. ADC believes in nature based solutions to environmental problems, including solutions that address the myriad of problems that afflict large proportions of the populations in Ghana and Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. From afar in the United States, Dr. Appiah-Padi has been involved in social development projects in Ghana and recently incorporated a development association for his hometown district. His passion is mobilizing locals towards their self-empowerment and development. As the subsistence farming livelihood of people is put at risk by political and large corporate activities, a nature based project such as ADC is envisioning is the way forward to sustain their livelihood and give them different avenues of hope and success. If doing this restores the environment for all, so much the better!

As an educator, Dr. Appiah-Padi believes in experiential learning, and sees the ADC carbon projects as a potential lab for student learning. Providing an avenue for US students to learn while assisting in the repair of the negative effects of their activities in Africa is a practical and noble approach to student education.

Dr. Appiah-Padi earned his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada in Educational Policy & Administration with a specialization in International/Intercultural Education; a Master’s from the Loughborough University of Technology, Loughborough, United Kingdom.

Dr. Appiah-Padi has held educational leadership positions at Northwestern College, where he provided oversight in the administration of education abroad and international student services. He developed and led new study abroad programs, prepared faculty to lead programs, directed international student services, as well as led a summer Institute of English as a Second Language program. In Lansing, Michigan, he first oversaw diversity and intercultural education at Lansing Community College. He later created the Center for International and Intercultural Education (CIIE) which merged intercultural engagement and international education programs of the institution, and he became its first director. Additionally, Dr. Appiah-Padi was also an adjunct faculty in the Business Department where he taught a course, “Diversity in the American Workplace” to undergraduate management students.

Dr Appiah-Padi creates and facilitates several workshops for faculty and staff development in higher education and in business organizations. He has presented at several national conferences. He is currently a member of the Forum on Education Abroad, the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA), Diversity Abroad, and NAFSA: Association of International Educators. In NAFSA, served as Dean of the Fundamentals of Intercultural Communication Workshop, the Leadership Development Committee, the Education Abroad Knowledge Community as Leadership Cultivation Coordinator, and Chair of the Africa Special Interest Group. He currently serves as a NAFSA Board of Directors member.