TEACHING

I teach International Relations at the IBB Graduate School of International Affairs and Kofi Annan Institute for Conflict Transformation at the University of Liberia.

Teaching Philosophy:

As a security sector reform expert who delivered several oral presentations to broader and more diverse audiences, the classroom is a suitable environment for me to lecture students. I bring my style of engagement to the classroom with the understanding that I am a learner and, at the same time, a teacher willing to learn new knowledge from students and listen to different opinions, even if those views challenge my thought process. Besides the classroom atmosphere, two key objectives describe my teaching philosophy: teaching as an art of motivation and stimulating critical thinking.

My teaching reflects an intense quest to understand security, crimes, armed conflicts, and comparative analyses of political institutions and processes to explore the relationship or political dimension among states and groups. I encourage students to write, think, and speak persuasively about these processes systematically and analytically. I consider the relationship between my profession, research, and teaching interconnected. My career within the security sector was characterized by recruiting, training, and mentoring security personnel, particularly the military, the rule of law institutions, and the intelligence community. As a political scientist with over ten years of education and training in political science (BA, MA, MPA, and PhD in various aspects of political science), I conduct political analyses of government, state, and society. I use a combination of professional experience and research to address thought-provoking questions encountered and attempt to clarify students’ questions that make little sense to improve teaching by investigating whether research supports inferences that make sense pedagogically. My overarching goal as an instructor is to increase the number of people I can impact through disseminating knowledge and stimulating lifelong learning to aid students in processing and appraising new information, synthesizing, and presenting reasonable arguments, even if these viewpoints challenge their values or beliefs.