MONROVIA – Liberia’s checked political history has infested its most significant academic institution, the University of Liberia, leaving its student population with the dominant mental attitude of radicalism and agitation rather than innovation that addresses the country’s intractable nemeses. Celebrating its anniversary at 74, the “Light in Darkness”, as its motto goes, the UL continues to crawl behind most tertiary institutions, some far younger than it is, on the continent, and it seems with a new administration in place, “the future starts now”, as the theme of the celebration articulates. To match to significance of the day, a veteran educator and doyen of the institution, Dr. Allen E. Allen, is chosen to serve as the Keynote Speaker at the anniversary occasion slated for today, February 17. The Analyst reports.
This year’s Founder’s Day celebration by the University of Liberia began in earnest last weekend and continues today, February 17 at which time Dr. William Ezra Allen, PhD, a renown historian and academic, will be the keynote speaker.
This year’s cerebration, which the 74th Anniversary, will accordingly concentrate largely on assembling internal stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, and alumni, to discuss how they see the future of the University.
It is reported that there will be a panel discussion – three panelists for the 74th Founder’s Day celebration drawn from Faculty, Alumni, and Students.
The University of Liberia (UL), formerly the Liberia College, marks its 74th Founder’s Day on today, February 15, 2025. Founded on February 15, 1951 as a replacement for the Liberia College, the University commemorates this day annually.
February 15 being on a weekend this year, the official celebration commemorating this year’s Founder’s Day is being observed today, Monday, February 17, 2025, on the University’s Capitol Hill Campus under the theme: “The Future Starts Now.”
In commemoration of its 74th year of existence since becoming a University on February 15, 1951, replacing Liberia College, which was itself founded in 1862, the President of the University, Prof. Dr. Layli Maparyan has released a statement, urging stakeholders to begin talking and visualizing the future of the University of Liberia that they would like to see.
In a special statement commemorating the 74th Founder’s Day, Dr. Maparyan expressed pleasure in celebrating this year’s anniversary, recalling that this is the day when Liberia College was
transformed into the University of Liberia as it is known today.
Before being transformed into a University, Liberia College was supported greatly by an American philanthropic organization called the Trustees of Donations for Education in Liberia (TDEL).
Dr. Maparyan explained that the theme of this year’s celebration is ‘The Future Starts Now,’ adding that the University is at a point of pivot, a transformation point in the University’s evolution.
“And I want everyone to be a part of it. Your assignment for this Founder’s Day is to begin talking about, thinking about, and visualizing the future of the University of Liberia that you would like to see,” Dr. Maparyan mandated the University Family.
In the process of having these conversations together, she noted that the University would begin to develop a roadmap for that journey ahead.
“In the meantime, I invite everyone to the Founder’s Day panel celebration and keynote address by Dr. William Ezra Allen, Director of the Center for Diaspora and Migration Studies at the University of Liberia, with responses from three noteworthy panelists,” Dr. Maparyan continued.
“It’s my honor and privilege to serve as the 16th president of the University of Liberia at this time of great promise for the University, and I thank everyone for celebrating this Founder’s Day with me.”
The Keynote Orator
Appropriately, the keynote speaker is someone who is a “dinosaur” and expert of the University, graduated, served as teaching assistant, assistant professor, dean of a college and still holding on has a full professor.
He’s Dr. William Ezra Allen.
Dr. Allen obtained his BA in history from the University of Liberia in 1983, joined the Department of History as a teaching assistant.
In 1988 he received a Fulbright Fellowship to study for his master’s at Indiana University, returned to Liberia in 1989 and rejoined the Department of History.
During the Liberian civil war, Dr. Allen traveled to the US and completed his PhD at Florida International University in Miami, Florida and conducted his dissertation research in Liberia in 1999 on a Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation.
His dissertation is entitled “Sugar and Coffee: Settler Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Liberia.” In 2006 he joined Kennesaw State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Dr. Allen returned to UL in 2013. He was Chairperson of the Department of History and Dean of the Liberia College (now the Dr. Amos C. Sawyer College of Social Sciences and Humanities). From 2017 to 2019, he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Allen is currently Executive Director for the Center for Diaspora and Migration Studies at the University.
Dr. Allen is the author of several peer-reviewed articles, including the following:
“Liberia and the Atlantic World in the Nineteenth Century: Convergence and Effects;” History in Africa, volume 37, 2010.
“Rethinking the History of Settler Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century Liberia,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 37, 3(2004): 435-462.
In Press: Building an African Republic: History and Identity in Americo-Liberian Memory. Dr. Allen’s chapter is entitled Becoming Liberian in an American Settlement.