Faculty/Staff Detail

Seth Asumah

Dr. Seth N. Asumah is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Africana Studies Department. Professor Asumah is the author and co-editor of ten books and over 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, reviews and essays.

He is President Emeritus and Vice President for Publications for the New York African Studies Association (NYASA). Dr. Asumah is Director of the Summer Institute for Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice at SUNY Cortland and has completed diversity, multicultural and teaching institutes at the National Multicultural Institute, Washington D.C. (2009); University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (1998); Williams College, MA (1994); MIT, Cambridge, MA (1991); and Fisk University, Nashville, TN (1991).

Professor Asumah is a recipient of many international, national, and local awards and honors, including the National Role Model Faculty Award, Minority INC. (2018), State University of New York at Oneonta Distinguished Alumni Award (2016), Steven J. Barnes Outstanding Faculty Award, SUNY Cortland (2016), Outstanding Achievement in Service Award, SUNY Cortland (2014), Carnegie-University of Ghana Diaspora Fellowship (2015), the Professor Ali A. Mazrui Outstanding Publication and Educational Activities Award (2014), SUNY Cortland Outstanding Service Award (2014), the State University of New York’s highest teaching honor, award and rank, Distinguished Teaching Professor (2007), the American Political Science Association Outstanding Teaching in Political Science Award (2008), the Rozanne Brooks Dedicated and Excellence in Teaching Award (1999), SUNY Cortland Excellence in Teaching Award (2002), The New York Africana Studies Association Outstanding Service Award (2012); The 2012 New York Africana Studies Book Award Honorable Mention and he has received many honors, including The Honor Society of Phi kappa Phi, the Political Science Honor Society of Pi Sigma Alpha and the International Honor Society of Phi Beta Delta. As a Fulbright-Hay National Screening Committee Member, he was recognized for his endeavors for the Africa Region in 2019 by the Institute of International Education (IIE). Dr. Asumah is a Boren Fellowship National Screening Committee Member for U.S. National Security Education Agency and the Institute of International Education (IIE).

Education

Doctorate in Government and International Relations; Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA

Master of Public Administration; Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PA

Bachelor of Science; Business Economics, State University of New York, Oneonta, N.Y.

Bachelor of Arts, Studio Arts, State University of New York at Oneonta, New York

Teaching

Courses Taught: Politics and Multiculturalism; Leadership for Social Change; World Politics; Race and Politics in America; International Politics in the Middle East; African Politics and Society; Politics of Developing Nation States; United States Foreign Policy; Soccer: Politics, Law and Culture and Senior Seminar in Africana Studies.

Publications

Professor Asumah is author and coeditor of ten books and over 100 book chapters, journal articles and essays. Selected publications include; Africana Studies: Beyond Race, Class and Culture, 2015 (with John K. Marah); Diversity, Social Justice and Inclusive Excellence: Transdisciplinary and Global Perspectives, 2014 (with Mechthild Nagel); Prisons and Punishment: Reconsidering Global Penality, 2007 (with Mechthild Nagel), Diversity, Multiculturalism and Social Justice, 2002 (with Johnston-Anumonwo); The Africana Human Condition and Global Dimensions (with Johnston-Anumonwo and John Marah); Educating the Black Child in the Black Independent School, 2001 (with Valencia Perkins); Issues in Africa and the African Diaspora in the 21^st Century, 2001 (with Johnston-Anumonwo); Issues in Multiculturalism: Cross-National Perspectives, 2^nd Edition, 1999 (with Johnston-Anumonwo); and Issues in Multiculturalism: Cross-National Perspectives,1995 (with Johnston-Anumonwo). Other selected publications include; Revisiting Kwame Nkrumah: Pathway for the Future (Jacob Gordon), 2017 (with Asumah cover foreword); Race, Immigration Reform and Heteropatriarchal Masculinity: Reframing the Obama Presidency (2015), Rethinking African Philosophy in the 21^st Century, Guest Foreword in Sonya Osha (2011) Postethnophilosophy; African Cultures, Modernization and Development: Reexamining the Effects of Globalization, 2011; Islam, Rentier States and the Quest for Democracy in Africa, The Western Journal of Black Studies ( December, 2010).

Service

Dr. Asumah is an educational consultant and external program reviewer. Colleges and universities he has consulted with or completed program reviews include : The University of Ghana, Legon; Tubman University, Harper , Liberia, University of Barcelona; University of Nis, Serbia, Xavier University, New Orleans, Louisiana; SUNY Oneonta, SUNY Brockport, SUNY New Paltz, and Brooklyn College, NY. Professor Asumah served on the Editorial Board of the State University of New York Press for three years and he currently serves on three other editorial boards. He has served as president, vice president, treasurer and executive board member of the New York African Studies Association.

Asumah coordinated the African American Studies Program for twelve years and he is the founding chair of the Africana Studies Department. He has served on numerous college-wide committees and continues to serve on committees that deal with international education, diversity and multiculturalism, Long Range and Strategic Plans, accreditation, curriculum, and personnel searches. He has served as faculty advisor to the Black Student Union for twenty-five years and serves as faculty advisor to four other student organizations: Know Your Roots-Africana Studies Association, Pan African Student Association, Gospel Choir, and the founding faculty advisor to the SUNY Cortland NAACP Chapter. He served as academic program coordinator for the Judson Taylor Leadership House.

His media appearances include, “The Morning Show” (Ghana); Africa T.V. Hamburg, Germany; GBC, Radio Ghan; the Ghanaian Times, Liberia TV, WHCU-Ithaca, the Daily Star, Oneonta; the Daily Graphic, Ghana; USA Today; and the Voice.

As a soccer referee, Asumah has represented the United States in six international matches, refereed numerous professional games and has been invited to officiate several NCAA Final Four and high school championship soccer matches.

Grants

Professor Asumah is Co-Primary Investigator, Training the Trainer: Infusing Diversity Into the Curriculum: Office of Diversity and Equity, SUNY and New York State/ United University Professionals Joint labor Management Committee, 2009-2012; Major collaborator, diversity pedagogy expert for the SUNY Cortland-University of Nis Project, 2003. This Department of State Project took him to Serbia in 2003, 2004 and 2005. He has won Long Range Diversity Grant for presenting at the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in Higher Education, (2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004) and he is a winner of numerous internal grants.