Department of Music and Dance

Since its inception in 1975, the Department of Music and Dance at the University of Cape Coast has been providing students with the artistic foundations of music and dance, combining established practices with innovation and encouraging students to explore new forms of creative expression. The Bachelor of Music program integrates music and dance performance, sound and movement studies, and general studies. In addition to applied music and courses in the theory and history of music and dance, the curriculum also includes courses in music technology, film music, music business, music journalism, and dance tourism, among others. The Department also offers programs in Music Education, Ethnomusicology, as well as Music Theory & Composition at the M.Phil. and Ph.D. levels. The Department’s performing groups include African ensemble, choir, popular band, and brass band, and students can choose from a variety of musical instruments for their individual performance studies. The Department also runs a recording studio, offering services to the wider community and giving students the opportunity to acquire hands-on skills in music production and technology.

Institute for Development Studies

The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) was established in 1968 as the Social Studies Project (SSP) following a memorandum of understanding between the governments of Ghana and the Netherlands. The Institute of Social Studies (The Hague) partnered the University of Cape Coast as project implementers. The main objective of the project was to engage in social sciences research in Ghana and beyond to contribute to the socio-economic transformation of Ghana. In 1973, the name was changed to the CDS and in 2008 this was further changed to IDS following the expansion in personnel as well as the range of programmes and courses that it offers. The core is to serve as the research wing of the Faculty of Social Sciences under the College of Humanities and Legal Studies, University of Cape Coast. It has fulfilled and continues to fulfill this mandate through its engagement in policy oriented research for local level as well as national, international and multi-lateral organizations.

Both academic and career-oriented programmes are run in the Institute. These are Master of Philosophy (MPhil) and Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Development Studies (1993), several Master of Arts (MA) sandwich programmes (introduced between 2003 and 2008), including MA in Environmental Management and Policy; MA in Democracy, Governance, Law and Development; MA in Governance and Sustainable Development; MA in Human Resource Development; MA in Human Resource Management, and MA in Peace and Development Studies. Other programmes of the Institute include Postgraduate Certificate in Labour Policy Studies (2006), undergraduate Diploma in Labour Studies (sandwich – 1999), and undergraduate Certificate in Labour Studies (2001), which are run in conjunction with the Ghana Labour College in Accra.

The Peace and Development Studies programme is unique in Ghana and West Africa as it is the only programme that seeks to integrate development issues into peace related discussions recognizing that peace work is development work and vice versa. Supported by the UNDP from 2007-2009, the intention of the framers of the programmes was to grow this eventually to become a department within the Faculty of Social Sciences to offer both the academic programmes as well as short courses to build capacity of development and peace workers for maintaining the stability and peace that this country continues to enjoy.

The Institute places great emphasis on outreach and advocacy programmes. The research fellows at the Institute undertake a wide range of activities, including public lectures, conference and seminars attendance on and off the campus, research and publication on public policy issues, hosting and facilitating workshops and conferences, and promoting public awareness through media and community activity. The Institute emphasizes dialogue and seeks at all times to create platforms either in seminars or as part of the curriculum delivery that bring people representing diverse views together for discussion of contemporary development issues.

Some research projects undertaken by the IDS in recent years include a baseline survey on Oil and Gas leading to the establishment of the Institute for Oil and Gas Studies in the University of Cape Coast (UCC) sponsored by ENI Foundation in 2012; baseline survey on the Fosu Lagoon, sponsored by the City of Bonn, Germany in 2013; the UNDP, Ghana supported project to map violent conflicts in Ghana (2014), continuing support of the UNDP to design modules for the training of traditional and religious leaders on conflict management and peace building in Ghana (2015) and for training of staff of the National Peace Council on mediation as a tool for conflict resolution (2016); the UNICEF supported project on assessing the effectiveness and capacity building needs of the national service personnel and national service secretariat for their full integration and scale-up in the complementary basic education programme. There are several intervention researches for the NGOs and District Assemblies on various issues including development plan preparation and implementation. The Institute itself through internally generated funds has supported research of staff on relevant issues of national development. These researches emanate from proposals written by staff in the research clusters. Some of these researches are: Waste workers matter, by the Labour and Development cluster; Land grabbing: an emerging issue for rural livelihoods in Ghana, by the Land Tenure, Livelihood and Development Cluster; and sand mining in the Central Region by the Governance of the Commons, including Public Resources Cluster.

Department of Geography and Regional Planning

The Department of Geography was established in 1962. Since then, the Department of Geography and Regional Planning has undergone changes and transformation. Starting as a single Department, it expanded to include Tourism and Population and Family Life Education programmes in the 1996/97 academic year. This led to the changing of the original name, Department of Geography, to the Department of Geography and Tourism. From the 1996/97 to 2008/2009 academic years, the Department offered three separate degree programmes namely: B.Sc. (Tourism), B. A. (Social Sciences with specialization in Geography) and B. A. (Population and Family Life Education).

After a decade, it became necessary again to restructure and refocus the programmes to meet current national and global challenges. Consequently, the Department was split into three separate entities, each representing one of the three programmes. Thus, the population programme was shifted to form the Department of Population and Health while the tourism programme was hosted in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management. The main Geography programme has been expanded to include regional planning, and renamed as the Department of Geography and Regional Planning to reflect its new and additional mandate. The Department now runs both undergraduate and graduate programmes, including the following:

Undergraduate:

• BA (Social Sciences – Geography Option)
• BSc (Geography and Regional Planning)
• Diploma (Transport and Road Safety Management-Sandwich)

Postgraduate:

• MA (Geography and Regional Planning)
• MA (Geography)
• M.Phil (Geography and Regional Planning)
• M.Phil (Geography)
• PhD (Geography and Regional Planning)
• PhD (Geography)
• MSc. (Disaster Management-Sandwich)
• MSc. (Land Policy and Administration-Sandwich)

The Department currently has two (2) part-time lecturers and eighteen (18) full-time lecturers. These twenty (20) academic staff include: one (1) Full professor, three (3) associate professors, six (6) Senior Lecturers, five (7) Lecturers; and three (3) Assistant Lecturers. Supporting the academic staff and Departmental Research and Project activities are five (5) Principal Research Assistants (PRAs).

The Administrative support staff are made up one (1) Principal Administrative Assistant (PAA), one (1) Senior Administrative Assistant, two (2) Technicians (GD I), one (1) Senior Clerk, one (1) Driver, and one (1) Cleaner.