During the vetting of Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah (MD) as the deputy minister-designate for the Ministry of Health, the Minority Leader, Alexander Afenyo-Markin, confronted her with the “Professor” title she uses. (She uses Prof. Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah on Facebook.)
“I am a full Professor of Surgery at the University of Utah and a Professor of Global Surgery,” Dr. Ayensu-Danquah claimed in response to the question after taking an oath to speak the truth.
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To back her claim, she added, “I have defended two theses. I have written so many publications, too numerous to count. And I have done a lot of research, too numerous to count.”
I don’t know the prolificity of Dr. Ayensu-Danquah’s research and publications, which fueled the claim that her research and publications are “too numerous to count.” Her CV, which she presented to parliament for her vetting, lists only 13 research works, including her master’s thesis, most of which were orally presented and a few published. The heading, “Research Work,” does not indicate that she selected these from a larger body of work.
So, the too numerous to count claim may be questionable, but what has clearly emerged is that she lied about her title as “a full professor” when she responded to Afenyo-Markin’s question.
She is not a full professor and cannot use the title, as directed by the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).
There is nothing about confusion in jurisdictional interpretation. This is not the case that someone is a lawyer in the United States and is being asked not to claim she’s a lawyer in Ghana until she’s been called to the Ghana bar. Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah is not a “full professor” of anything anywhere in this world.
An August 7, 2025, letter from the University of Utah to GTEC says she is an “adjunct assistant professor at the department of surgery.” That letter is signed by W. Bradford Rockwell, the Vice Chair for Academic Affairs in charge of Surgery.
Dr. Ayensu-Danquah’s CV indicates that she’s been an adjunct assistant professor at Utah for seven years, from 2018 to present.
An August 8, 2025, letter written by Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah’s lawyers to GTEC also states that she “was appointed an assistant professor of surgery by the University of Utah in the United States of America.” The three-page letter written by her lawyers omitted the “adjunct” from her position. Interestingly, she is referred to as “Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah” throughout the letter. The lawyers omitted the title “Professor” even though that letter opposes GTEC’s position that Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah has not earned the title of a professor and must desist from using it.
An adjunct assistant professor is equivalent to a part-time lecturer in our jurisdiction. It is nowhere near “a full professor” in the Commonwealth jurisdiction or even in the United States. A part-time lecturer cannot claim to be “a full professor” and prefix her name with the title “Professor,” whether in the United States or elsewhere.
This semester, I’m a graduate teaching assistant at my university, here in the United States. My students are likely to refer to me as their “professor”, the same way we refer to our university teachers as “lecturers” back home in Ghana.
An assistant professor is an entry-level placement for newly appointed lecturers here in the United States. Some of our friends who have completed their PhDs here are assistant professors. Back home, they would have been lecturers.
After about five years, an assistant professor is assessed based on his or her research, publications, conference presentations, and teaching. If the team of assessors finds the body of work adequate, the assistant professor will be promoted to an associate professor.
One must meet certain criteria as an associate professor before being awarded a full professorship. Full professors use the title “Professor” before their name.
Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah is only a part-time assistant professor. The requirements of her role even differ from those of full-time assistant professors. Assistant professors have a greater chance of advancing to the next step on the academic ladder than adjunct assistant professors.
Dr. Ayensu-Danquah is not an associate professor. And she’s not “a full professor” as she falsely claimed at her vetting. In the most charitable terms, her use of the title Professor Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah is disingenuous.
Information available to me indicates that the GTEC tried to quietly persuade Dr. Ayensu-Danquah to stop using the title “Professor,” but she has been adamant about it, leading to the recent escalations.
On July 31, 2025, the Board Chairman of GTEC, Professor Mahama Dawiejua, met Dr. Grace Ayensu Danquah in an office at the Civil Aviation Training School to discuss the matter, over which GTEC had received petitions after her vetting. She reportedly defended her claim to the “Professor” title and left the meeting without agreeing to drop it.
From the available facts, GTEC is right and she’s wrong. She and her lawyers should spare GTEC and Ghanaians the legal threats. If they still have a face to save, they should keep the lower part of it shut and apologise to Ghanaians.
If Dr. Grace Ayensu-Danquah’s service to humanity as a medical doctor, her election as the Member of Parliament for Essikado-Ketan, and her appointment as deputy minister are not adequate, clinging to a “Professor” she has not earned will not do her any good.
GTEC must be commended for stepping up to rid our society of claimants of false titles. It may not be the institution’s main function, but we must not belittle their efforts.
Recently, the government was embarrassed by the NHIS board’s appointment of a lady who had falsely claimed on TV to be a medical doctor.
In 2021, I investigated and exposed the activities of a fake doctor who used his health facility at Gbawe in Accra to sexually abuse scores of women who went to him for treatment. His victims, some of whom are educated middle-class members of our society, were surprised when I revealed that the “Dr.” Jonathan Ohene Nkunim displayed on his call card was not backed by any certificate.
Academics in Ghana are often berated by the anti-intellectual base of our society for wielding “useless” titles. Their attackers usually claim that some people without formal education have succeeded in business and made money, while those with “big titles “are mostly paupers. But the same people who are used as the benchmark to judge academics are buying titles they have not earned and using them to confuse society. If people feel they are inadequate without academic titles, they should earn them legitimately. Fraudulently appropriating an unearned title speaks of low self-esteem and must be discouraged.
Written by Manasseh Azure Awuni
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, United States
