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January 5, 1998

Chancellor Greenwood leads academic delegation to India

By Barbara McKenna

Chancellor Greenwood is scheduled to return on Saturday, January 10, from India, where she led a delegation in late December with the aim of forging collaborations and academic interchange between institutions in India and UCSC. Accompanying the chancellor are leading campus administrators and faculty.

The delegation has met with a number of India's top political and academic leaders and has visited academic institutions, research centers, and centers of science and technology. Among the highlights of the visit, Chancellor Greenwood addressed the Indian Science Congress in Hyderabad on January 3.

The delegation members are Chancellor Greenwood, Executive Vice Chancellor Michael Tanner, Assistant Chancellor for University Advancement Daniel G. Aldrich III, Dean of the Division of the Arts Edward Houghton, Dean of the Division of Humanities Jorge Hankamer, and Associate Professor of History Dilip Basu.

"The purpose of this trip is to forge collaborations with our colleagues in India working on projects of mutual interest," said Greenwood before her departure. "UCSC is home to a diverse range of activities in the field of Indian studies--in every arena from humanities to arts to the sciences--and there is great potential for fruitful partnerships between our campus and numerous institutions and individuals in India."

"Although the U.S. and India are physically distant, in many other ways we are quite close," said Narpat Bhandari, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who recently established the Chandra Bhandari Endowed Chair in India Studies at UCSC. "We have in common our strong democratic values and rich and diverse cultures. I am excited by the potential for collaborations, which, through our evolving technology, makes the span of the globe ever more negligible."

With two recent developments on campus pertinent to the Indian community, the trip is taking place at an ideal time. The establishment of the Bhandari Chair has served as a catalyst for encouraging and focusing activities in the arts, humanities, and social and natural sciences pertinent to the Indian experience on the subcontinent and in its diasporic communities. Additionally, UCSC has opened the door for close ties with Silicon Valley's extensive Indian entrepreneurial community through the establishment of a school of engineering.

The Chandra Bhandari Endowed Chair in India Studies is one of the country's few endowed chairs in India studies. The chair is the first step in a vision to establish an international center for the study of Indian civilization and culture. During their trip, delegates have been meeting with key members of India's academic, business, and governmental sectors, seeking to gain interest from these individuals in participating in international conferences and symposia sponsored by the chair.

The delegation is focusing as well on building partnerships between representatives from India's hi-tech industry and engineering programs and members of UCSC's newly established Jack Baskin School of Engineering. The school, which admitted its first students this past fall, is training people to become a part of the skilled engineering workforce for Silicon Valley and the burgeoning high-tech community in the Monterey Bay region.


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