Hi folks,

I thought I'd pass this on, in the wave of congratulations to Dr. Madiba Saidy
on recent Ph.D.  A Kenyan friend of mine recently also got his Ph.D. and
mentioned this article in an e-mail he sent to me.  I asked him to forward it
to me so I could pass it on.  I hope you find it useful, and inspiring.

By the way, the friend I refer to above is called Chang'aa, and I'll be
sending, under seperate cover, his annoucement of his successful defense of his
dissertation.  I found that one very interesting reading too, and thought I'd
share it.

And to Dr. Madiba, I'd like to extend my congratulations. Interestingly enough,
it was yesterday (Sat. Nov. 27) that I was hosting my African music program,
"The Baobab Beat" on our community radio station here in Madison, and decided
to play a song called "Madiba."  A really nice SEWRUBA song from a CD "Mandinka
Drum Master", by Mamadou Ly (from Cassamance).  I happened to have started the
set with a cut from Sedhiou Band's CD Africa Kambeng (see
http://www.africassette.com), followed by Taata and his Salaam Band's "Africa
Kambeng" from the compilation CD "Streets of Dakar" on Stern's Africa.  It was
a lot of fun, and I did mention Madiba's Ph.D. on the air, even though the guy
wasn't within our listening range.  But it's the spirit that matters!  Again,
congratulations and best wishes, Madiba, er Dr. Saidy!

Katim

>Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 10:37:34 -0500 (CDT)
>From: Ronald S Edari <[log in to unmask]>
>Sender: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: What's in a PhD?
>To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
>X-Authentication-Warning: ns2.africaonline.com:
> majordomo set sender to [log in to unmask] using -f
>
>Wananeti:
>
>It seems that someone is "pissed" at those who profess to have PhDs!
>But what's behind such a title? As Mabwana Muoria and Kitabwalla correctly
>observed, a PhD is a "research" degree, despite some "outliers" for whom
>the title is just that, a "title" that gives them bragging rights.
>
>As a one-time director of a PhD programme in "Urban Social Institutions",
>I was constantly confronted with the agonizing problem of "weeding out"
>some students who were in the programme for reasons of "consumating" their
>illusions of status. A number of these were well-placed local
>personalities, who were already very successful in their careers.
>
>One case which comes to mind was a high ranking adminstrator with the
>Medical College of Wisconsin. He had an MBA which was what was required
>for his position. But for some reason, particularly in view of the fact
>that he was surrounded by Drs--some with PhDs (eg PhD in Biostatistics) or
>MDs in medicine, he must have suffered a terrible inferiority complex! So
>what happened?
>
>He sought admission in our programme. He was admitted on condition that he
>makes up deficiencies in social theory, methods of research and
>statistics. As if that were not bad enough, he found out that he also had
>to learn some rudiments of Unix, emacs or vi, canned statistical packages
>eg SPSS or SAS! And these are just tools to equip a student with the
>wherewithal to undertake their own research. To do his assignments he had
>to dig deep into the huge repository of data maintained by the Social
>Science Research Facility and isolate "variables" that are germane to
>whatever hypotheses intrigued him! Where do you get help in all of this?
>You don't! You are supposed, at this level of instruction, have all the
>tools for negotiating through the different phases of the program:
>classes, research, preliminary examination and finally your PhD thesis!
>
>Well, after struggling for two years in the programme, without showing
>"acceptable" progress, we had to advise the person in question to drop out
>of the programme. He did this "gladly".
>
>We should all take our hats off to all the Kenyans who have gone through
>such a harrowing exercise. It is a process that requires tremendous
>discipline, sacrifice, and tenacity in the pursuit of knowledge. These
>sons and daughters of the soil have joined hands with all the men and
>women who collectively have contributed to the pool of human knowledge on
>a global scale. If Kenya cannot harness such brain power, that is an
>indictment of our society and its political system and not our men and
>women of knowledge. Why would anybody expect someone with, let us say, a
>PhD in civil engineering, "fix" our political system? Are the conditions
>of roads bad in Kenya because some with PhD in civil engineering is not
>using his/her head? Eh!
>
>Mzee Edari
>
>

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