University Of Missouri-St. Louis: PhD Alieu Sanneh Gets A ‘Lifeline’ To Achieve His Dreams At UMSL

Press release from the University of Missouri-St. Louis:

Burk Krohe

Feb/15/2021

As a boy, Alieu Sanneh was incensed watching his parents toil for little money in The Gambia.

Sanneh was a naturally curious kid, always reading, and his family’s situation only strengthened his resolve to further his education. His parents never had the opportunity to go to school, but he would.

“I knew that there were two things that I could do,” he said. “My dad was a farmer, and being a farmer in Gambia means you get stuck in poverty. But I thought, ‘Or I could change my life and become different. Choose education, however hard it is.’ I could just test myself and see if I was good at it.”

Now, Sanneh, who is the son of a farmer and domestic worker, is a doctor after recently completing his PhD in political science at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.

Along the way, he served as head boy at one of Gambia’s elite high schools, graduated from the country’s first public university and recounted his story to numerous UMSL alumni while working at the Triton Telefund.

Though Gambia escapes the attention of most Americans, the country has shaped Sanneh’s path in life, as well as his interest in political science.

A small sliver of a country in West Africa, it surrounds the Gambia River and is itself surrounded by Senegal. After independence in the 1960s, Dawda Jawara ruled the country for 30 years until Yahya Jammeh, a young military leader, deposed him via a bloodless coup in 1994.

Sanneh said Jammeh clearly reigned as a dictator, but his rule also brought the first concerted efforts to build infrastructure, hospitals and schools. One of those schools was the University of the Gambia, the first higher education institution in the country.

As an undergraduate at the university in 2010, Sanneh started working with Emil Nagengast, a professor from Juniata College who was guest teaching a political science course and starting a study abroad exchange in Gambia.

The two quickly connected after Sanneh heard one of his lectures.

“The way in which politics was taught at that time in my university, it was pretty much censored,” Sanneh said. “Because we were living in a dictatorship, political freedom was not guaranteed. You say something, and you might end up getting arrested. So, when Nagengast came, somebody not from Gambia, and taught me all these different theoretical perspectives, I got a very strong interest in political science.”

Sanneh stayed in touch with Nagengast and helped him coordinate subsequent study abroad programs. He even offered the professor a little constructive criticism.

“I asked him, ‘Why are you here? What’s the goal?’” Sanneh said. “He said, ‘Well, we’re here on a study abroad program, and we want to learn this and that.’ So, I kind of look at him, and I’m like, ‘Yeah, but it sounds to me like you guys are just tourists.’”

To incorporate more cultural education, Sanneh arranged for the American students to visit villages and take part in village life. He also set up meetings with politicians and representatives from non-governmental organizations working in the country.

During the same period, Sanneh became acquainted with St. Louis-area native Andy Blunk through the university. With Nagengast and Blunk’s help and encouragement, Sanneh applied and was accepted to a master’s program at Webster University in 2014.

He made the transatlantic trip to Missouri believing that his schooling would be paid for by the Gambian government. Then he got a surprise of a lifetime.

“When I got here, everything went upside down,” he recalled. “They didn’t follow through with the promise they made. I was stuck.”

It seemed like an impossible situation to navigate – stranded in a foreign country without funding. To add to the turmoil, he arrived in the midst of social unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting death of Michael Brown.

But Blunk and his family quickly rallied around Sanneh.

This press release was produced by the University of Missouri-St. Louis. The views expressed here are the author’s own.