In July 2006, Emmet Dennis, dean of University College, took on a new role as a member of the board of trustees of the University of Liberia. Since his appointment, he has been returning periodically to lend his expertise in several areas to his war-ravaged homeland.

The educational system of Liberia, along with the African country’s entire infrastructure, was destroyed in civil wars, the first from 1989 to 1996, another from 1997 to 2003. The conflicts killed or displaced hundreds of thousands of people and left the economy in shambles.

Named to the post by the nation’s new president, Dennis has attended meetings aimed at rebuilding Liberia’s system of higher education and helping guide its battle against malaria and HIV, which claim thousands of lives yearly. In December, he helped organize a conference on malaria control and spoke at the conference on how the country can take advantage of new initiatives in disease control provided by funding from computer guru Bill Gates and President Bush.

Dennis returned to Liberia March 20 to serve two additional functions in addition to regular board duties: He will join a Liberian Ministry of Health team to meet with experts from USAID and the Centers for Disease Control, who want to tap Dennis’s expertise as founder and director of the Liberian Institute for Biomedical Research, which he ran during the 1970s. He also will discuss with the ministry of education on how higher education should be organized. Efforts now center on the capital, Monrovia, but the country is looking to expand educational access across the rest of the country.

"I am happy to be able to play a role again and I’m hoping perhaps Rutgers can play some role in higher education. I’d love to see that happen," he said, suggesting a possible exchange of faculty and students. "At the moment, the university has a large backlog of students that it can’t handle because of a lack of manpower. The university lost many professors who were either killed or driven out."

Dennis said he is heartened by the recent election of Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist, as president – the first female head of state in Africa. "She is extremely capable, he said, "and education, particularly for women, is a high priority for her. There will be lots of new challenges."

Dennis’ meetings have been a prelude to his plans to take a sabbatical beginning in September and return to Liberia for a year if the reorganization of University College is proceeding smoothly. "I want to ensure that things are set up for the University College community and are functioning well," he says. He admits to having "a particular passion for meeting the needs of nontraditional students,” which, he added, “cannot be overemphasized."

On his return he is expected to assume the post of dean of the University College community under the proposed reorganization of undergraduate education in New Brunswick. The four undergraduate liberal arts colleges – Douglass, Livingston, Rutgers, and University Colleges – are combining to create the School of Arts and Sciences.

Dennis received his bachelor’s degree from Cuttington University in Liberia, holds a master’s degree from Indiana University in invertebrate zoology, and a doctoral degree in parasitology from the University of Connecticut.

For the past 10 years, Dennis has served as dean of University College and for five of those years, he also was vice president for student affairs at the university. Dennis, who teaches a course in human parasitology in the Department of Cell Biology and Neuroscience at Rutgers, hopes also to continue his academic work in Liberia by studying the impact of 26 years of political unrest on the prevalence, intensity, and mortality rates of diseases.

Returning to Liberia is not without some danger, however. A United Nations force maintains security and trains a new Liberian army and police force, Dennis said, but the country is now relatively safe.

Hopefully,  it is a bit safer for Dennis today than decades ago.  He recalls fleeing the country in 1980 during a period of civil unrest and a subsequent coup. These days, however, he finds getting around Liberia considerably easier. 

"Having a U.S. passport is like having E-ZPass," Dennis said.