Incredible India welcomes
WMU transnational education delegation  Dr. Ajay Samant, associate dean and professor of finance
in WMU’s Haworth College of Business and
Ms. Suniti Phanke, Director, International Affairs, Christ College “Incredible India!” That’s the tag line the Indian tourism industry is using to encourage travel to India. Following her annual site visit to Western Michigan University’s three transnational education programs there, Cathleen Fuller, TNE director, must agree.
 “India is one of the most interesting countries I have visited,” Fuller said. “In the 11-plus years that WMU has operated TNE programs there, the country’s advancements in several regards have been monumental.” Fuller, accompanied by Drs. Ajay Samant, associate dean and professor of finance in WMU’s Haworth College of Business, and Ajay Gupta, professor of computer science, traveled to India in mid February for the annual site inspections of Christ College, Bangalore; Rajagiri MBA program, Cochin; and Rajagiri Engineering program, Cochin. In addition, Fuller and Gupta visited Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belgaum, India to explore partnership opportunities. Their first destination was Cochin, Kerala. This city (population 1.35 million) in the southern Indian state of Kerala has undergone amazing growth even in just the past year. Samant, who is originally from Mumbai, was astonished with the amount of construction occurring in the city.  “The development in India as a whole and southern India specifically, is impressive,” Samant said. “It’s easy to see why international firms want to locate here.” A well known fact is that Kerela is the most literate state in India, with the second highest literacy rate (89.9 percent) after Mizoram and a life expectancy of 73 years. The state also supports a variety of industries—shipyards, petroleum refineries, spice farming and the new Infopark Kochi, located in the Special Economic Zone (created specifically to give tax incentives to multinational corporations). Kerela is home to two of the three WMU TNE programs in India. Both are operated in coordination with the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences. WMU has been a partner with RISER since 1995. Every year, WMU welcomes students into the Haworth College of Business MBA program and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences— mainly in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. Bangalore, the information technology capitol of India, was the next stop for Fuller and Samant. Here too, Fuller said, the changes in recent years were phenomenal, including construction of a new state-of-the-art international airport due to open in 2009. Fr. Thomas, principal of Christ College, hosted a dinner for the WMU delegation to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the WMU/Christ College TNE program. “The main reason for the success and longevity of the relationship is the trust between the two partners,” Thomas said. “WMU and Christ College are working hand-in-hand to graduate some of the brightest and most talented young men and women in India.” Fuller was then joined by Gupta to visit Visvesvaraya Technological University in Belgaum, India. VTU is currently the No. 2 feeder school into WMU’s College of Engineering and Applied Sciences (WMU, overall, is No. 1). Fuller said VTU has consistently been sending students into WMU’s engineering graduate programs for five years. They hired a car to drive them the 3.5 hour ride to VTU from Goa—an interesting drive through the mountains, crossing the state boundary of Goa into Karnataka. This visit, the first of many faculty exchanges that will hopefully result, will partner WMU with one of the premier public universities in India. Fuller said VTU’s Vice Chancellor Dr. H.P. Khincha saw the key areas of a partnership with WMU to be master’s degree level collaboration, Ph.D. degree collaboration, VTU faculty-training, and faculty-exchange. As is customary, all delegations from WMU include a visit to the Consulate General’s office and The United States Educational Foundation in India in Chennai. This visit to the consulate held an interesting surprise. The Consul and Chief of Consular Services is Mark Fry, a Kalamazoo native, graduate of WMU and one-time faculty member in Political Science. He was even next-door office neighbor to Gupta in Friedmann Hall.  "Mark was and continues to be an extremely hard-working person,” Gupta said. “His leadership skills were readily evident and are now exhibited in his position as a chief consul at Chennai. Back in the early nineties, I was at the beginning of my career and often used to spend late nights in Friedman Hall working on my research. Mark also used to work late nights studying for his Foreign Service exams. We used to have healthy discussions on all kind of topics - topics ranging from science to religion to politics - other faculty colleagues and students joined in as well. It was a pleasant surprise to meet him at the consulate after almost 15 years and he has hardly changed from those days and still remembers WMU very well.”
Fuller said the visit to the consulate was a satisfying last stop in India. “The WMU faculty that visit our TNE programs partners are consistently impressed by the faculty and their industrious and hardworking students,” Fuller said. “Dr. Samant, Dr. Gupta and I returned to WMU with an even deeper appreciation for Incredible India"." WMU Transnational Education Web site |
