Since 1997, design students have participated in the only studio art experience hosted by a U.S. college in one of Africa's greatest cultural centers: Ghana. The Art and Design International Program abroad offers an empirical experience by requiring students to investigate the motifs, symbols and markings of a foreign country.

Students collect data by means of drawing, painting, photography, collecting artifacts, and oral and written documentation. As part of an international educational initiative in Ghana, design students study at the College of Art at the University of Science and Technology located in the center of Kumasi, Ghana's most industrious city. An NC State companion program, the Ghana Summer Study Abroad in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Sciences, sends students from other disciplines to study the culture, language and history of the Ghanaian society at the University of Ghana at Legon near Accra.

The NC State-Ghana initiative was formalized in 1994, and is meant to promote global understanding among students and faculty from diverse backgrounds and circumstances. Since the educational alliance began, professors from Ghana have served as visiting professors at NC State; an NC State professor went to Ghana as a Fulbright Scholar; and students at the College of Veterinary Medicine completed their epidemiology rotation in Ghana. NC State students also have the opportunity to study in Ghana for a semester or an entire school year.

Students in the design studio program visit artistic and cultural sites: villages that specialize in printing, wood carving and crafts; the National Museum; workshops with tie-dye and batik artists; and galleries and artists' markets in the city of Accra. Ghanaian artists are esteemed for their crafting of ancient terra cotta work, bronze, Kente cloth, tie-dying and batik, leather and straw products, traditional gold jewelry, Krobo beads and wood carvings of Ahwai-Ashanti.

The group also tours sites used to hold Africans captive during the Atlantic slave trade, including the Elmina Castle. One reason for selecting Ghana as a study site is its historical importance to Americans. Ghana and the west coast of African, known as the Gold Coast, was the principal source of slaves for the New World.