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Born into a home full of books in Ejisu, a small city in southern Ghana, Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah鈥檚 love of languages and people led him all the way to 涩里番下载. As the instructional services manager for 涩里番下载 Libraries for the past three decades, he鈥檚 taught generations of Eagles how to conduct research. He鈥檚 also published studies on how libraries can support international and adult students and served as a court interpreter. We spoke with Sarkodie-Mensah about his journey from Ghana to Chestnut Hill, his life鈥檚 work, and his children鈥攐ne of whom is the WWE wrestling superstar Kofi Kingston.聽聽

When I tell my life鈥檚 story, I always start聽with the Brothers of the Holy Cross.聽Between the ages of 11 and 18, I traveled 200 miles on public transportation to attend St. John鈥檚, a boarding school that the brothers operated in the city of Takoradi. The brothers there took care of a school full of crazy teenage boys, and they were excited every day. As I observed them, I started thinking about service leadership, and about how big the world is.聽

When I came to Clarion University in Pennsylvania to study library science, I was the only student in my master鈥檚 program without library experience. In the 鈥�80s, the Ghanaian government was able to support a few students to pursue professional degrees abroad, and the opportunity came up. When my professors talked about 鈥渃irculation,鈥� I thought they meant blood. Luckily, I鈥檝e never been afraid to ask questions. If I didn鈥檛 understand a system or a printer, I would just ask every person in the room until I figured it out.

In graduate school, I noticed many of my international peers weren鈥檛 benefitting from library resources, because they were afraid to ask questions. I had library directors from Kuwait and department heads from Jordan coming to me for advice, simply because I was willing to approach American librarians. These were respected professionals in their countries鈥攆or them, to have an American librarian address them condescendingly was deeply frustrating. This was 1988, and some librarians would take one look at us and hand us a piece of paper to write down our question, assuming we couldn鈥檛 speak English. In my writing and research, I鈥檝e advocated for more patience. How come many people in the U.S. don鈥檛 feel the need to learn a second language, yet we expect 18-year-olds from China and Ghana to speak like Nobel Prize winners?

I love the social justice aspect of being Catholic. In 1992, when I got hired at 涩里番下载, Father William Neenan spoke these words at my orientation: 鈥淎t 涩里番下载, we never say I. We say we.鈥� I recognized that sentiment immediately, because I鈥檇 heard it from the Brothers of the Holy Cross. For the first time, I realized 涩里番下载 might be home. And it has been鈥擨鈥檝e gotten to teach, to learn from students, and to start the 涩里番下载-Ejisu Computer Literacy Camp volunteer program. It has been deeply meaningful to introduce 涩里番下载 students to children in my hometown.

When people say, 鈥淵ou鈥檙e Kofi Kingston鈥檚 father,鈥� I always say, 鈥淵es, but I also have other children.鈥� The whole family went to WrestleMania together in 2019, when Kofi won the WWE Championship. They put us two inches from the ring, and I screamed the whole time. My younger son, Kwame, kept saying, 鈥淒ad, please stop.鈥� But I was so afraid Kofi was going to get hurt鈥攁nd so excited鈥攖hat I couldn鈥檛. We spend so much time talking about our differences these days, but when you hear thousands of voices cheering for your son, it鈥檚 hard not to see the ways in which people are also capable of recognizing each another鈥檚 humanity and worthiness. It felt like a message for everyone.聽