Dr. Daniel Wubah, president of Millersville University, keeps a special wooden box on his desk. His grandfather gave it to him before he died. And before him, the box belonged to his great grandfather. It’s about six by four inches with a carving of a tree on the inside. For Wubah, that box is a reminder of his two identities and roles.
The trunk and branches of the tree remind Wubah of his life in the United States, where he lived as a 23-year-old graduate student. Wubah’s family, like his career, took hold and grew on American soil. But his West African roots are in Ghana where he was born and now serves as an African regional king or safohene.
The wooden box “serves as a bond for me,” he says. “It reminds me I have those two roles to play.”
For Wubah, the past two years have been a whirlwind. A year ago, in 2018, Wubah, a microbiologist by training, was named president of Millersville University. And in 2017, he was coronated king of a district in Ghana when his uncle, who was king at the time, passed away. Becoming king was a position Wubah said he was groomed for since childhood.
No doubt, leading a university while ruling a Ghanaian kingdom from Lancaster, Pennsylvania is demanding, but Wubah does it. The typical day of a king and a college president begins at 4 a.m. with a call to his council of elders in Ghana. Then he gets to the office at 7:30 a.m. to begin work as Millersville’s president.
Seeing more similarities than differences between the two leadership positions he holds helps Wubah to manage this juggling act. But toggling between being a royal and a president, he admits, has been a “learning experience.” Shifting roles and mindsets, too, is a daily effort.
“As a king, what I say is final,” Wubah points out. But “As a president, I don’t have absolute authority. “If we have an impasse on my cabinet, I can’t just decree this is what we’re going to do.”
