Remembering Dr. Janet Kwami: Fund for Scholars in Ghana

Dr. Janet Kwami was an extraordinary Ghanaian scholar who passed away just over a year ago on May 5, 2023 after a long battle with stage IV breast cancer. She was just shy of her 50th birthday. This fundraiser will endow a scholarship fund at the University of Ghana in her memory. This is a fitting tribute to mark the anniversary of her passing.

I met Janet in 2004 while I was living in Accra, Ghana doing fieldwork for my dissertation while she was working on a research project funded by the UK government. Janet quickly became a deeply trusted friend and confidante who offered thoughtful explanations from her position as a cultural insider. I did research alongside her for a few years after that. She was simply fun and easy to be with, brimming with brilliant insights, and so positive about the research process.

After completing her PhD in New Media and Technology at the University of Oregon, she joined Furman University in South Carolina as a professor in the Communications department. She continued this role of cultural translator for many American students who had limited knowledge of Ghana or any other part of the African continent.

Janet received her diagnosis not long after she started at Furman. I think of what followed as an extraordinary mix of good and bad fortune. Reflecting particularly on the good, she had amazing support from colleagues at Furman and good health insurance. Living with cancer, she had many good days (and many years) and was able to be with her husband Nat Buah-Kwofie and her daughters, Natalie and Nicole, staying by their side through their tender early childhood years. As recently as 2022 she took a group of students on a study abroad trip to Ghana. She relished the creative possibilities and challenges of teaching. In 2017 she won a University-wide teaching award. As her health declined, her mother was able to get a travel visa to come from Ghana and Janet was surrounded by those closest to her. In her final days she was promoted to full professor. Janet radically changed how those around her think about what a terminal cancer diagnosis means.

Janet’s death is a tremendous loss to her family and friends as well as to our research community.

The funds raised here will be used in the following ways:

1) An award fund at the University of Ghana called the “Prof Janet Dzigbodi Kwami Excellence Award” was launched by Janet’s family (her husband Nat, and daughters) and her dissertation advisor Dr. Leslie Steeves. The current fund totaling $1500 will award $300 a year for 5 years for the top Masters’ thesis in communication studies. The funds we raise as a community will extend that award beyond 5 years, keeping the memory of Janet alive for many years to come.

2) Janet’s husband Nat also donated her books to the University of Ghana and wants to be able to replenish and keep this book collection up to date. Academic books can cost anywhere from $30 - $100 each. Additional funds will go towards this purpose.

Janet completed her undergraduate degree in Ghana. If we can boost this fund in her memory we can support more promising Ghanaian students, like Janet. This kind of funding goes a long way in Ghana. Please donate if you knew Janet, wish to support students, researchers, and research in Ghana, hate cancer, or for any other reason. Her family, friends, colleagues, students, and everyone whose lives she touched are immensely appreciative of any contribution of any size.