Wisdom Tettey
Media, politics and civic engagement in Africa; African higher education and the knowledge society; transnational citizenship and the African diaspora; representation, identity, and inclusive citizenship
| Degrees: | BA [Hons] (Ghana), Grad. Dip (Ghana), MA (UBC), PhD (Queen’s) |
| Email: | wisdom.tettey@carleton.ca |
| Office: | 503 Tory Building |
Professor, President and Vice-Chancellor
Wisdom Tettey currently serves as Carleton University’s 17th President and Vice-Chancellor, having joined Carleton in 2025 from the University of Toronto, where he was Vice-President and Principal of the Scarborough campus between 2018 and 2024. He previously held the roles of Dean of the Irving K. Barber School of Arts and Sciences and of the Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, both at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, and was Interim Dean of the Faculty of Communication and Culture at the University of Calgary.
Tettey has served as a consultant and advisor to various global organizations, including the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, the Africa Capacity Building Foundation and the International Association of Universities. He is an elected Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and serves on the advisory and editorial boards of various academic publications.
Selected Publications
2025. “The “New Guardians” and Nuances of Media Capture in Ghana: Persistence or Rupture of Elite Power?” (with K. Anoff-Ntow). In Hayes M. Mabweazara and Bethia Pearson (eds.), Contesting News Media Capture in Africa and Latin America. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 107-138 (https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-68962-8_5)
2024. “Media Pluralism, Regulators, and Transactional Instrumentalism in Ghana” (with K. Anoff-Ntow). In J.R.A. Ayee, L.G.A Amoah, and S.M. Alidu (eds), Political Institutions, Party Politics and Communication in Ghana: Three Decades of the Fourth Republic. London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 239-259
2022. “Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Challenges, Contestations and Contradictions.” In Tamari Kitosa, Malinda Smith, Awad Ibrahim, Handel Wright (eds.), Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy: Teaching, Learning, and Researching while Black. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp. 111-122
2022. “COVID-19 Narratives and Counter-Narratives in Ghana: The Dialectics of State Messaging and Alternative Re/De-Constructions.” (with K. Anoff-Ntow). Journal of African Media Studies, vol. 14 (1), pp. 125-142
2020. “COVID-19, Anti-Black Racism in China, and Political Economy of. Asymmetrical Power,” Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography. https://antipodeonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/7.-Tettey.pdf
2013. Media and Information Literacy, Informed Citizenship and Democratic Development In Africa: A Handbook for Information/Media Producers and Users. Harare: African Capacity Building Foundation
2010. The Public Sphere and the Politics of Survival: Voice, Sustainability and Public Policy in Ghana. Accra: Woeli Publishing Services [Co-edited with Korbla P. Puplampu]
2010. Challenges of Developing and Retaining the Next Generation of Academics: Deficits in Academic Staff Capacity at African Universities. New York: Partnership for Higher Education in Africa
2009. African Media and the Digital Public Sphere. New York: Palgrave Macmillan [co-edited withO. Mudhai and F. Banda]