 Blyden was able to expose the student body to a wide spectrum of international scholars, including William Leo Hansberry, Arnold Toynbee, Basil Davidson, Leopold Senghor and others.At the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War in 1966, he and his family moved to Freetown where he became Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and Director of African studies at Fourah Bay College (the University of Sierra Leone).First and foremost, Blyden considered himself a teacher, and strove to imbue a generation of bright young men and women with the knowledge, principles and self-confidence needed to guide Africa in a Post-Colonial world.