Our curriculum must fulfil community needs

E Gordon Gee Ohio State University prez talks about the institution’s plans

Ohio State University wants greater engagement with India, apart from China and Brazil.

HT Image

These three countries are where “we really want to engage in substantial relations,” says university president E Gordon Gee during his visit to New Delhi. The university is keen on creating “global partnerships and global impacts.” The university, which has around 1,000 undergraduate and postgraduate Indian enrolees, wants more of its American students to come to India, says Gee. Excerpts from an interview with the veteran varsity head:

What are your areas of interest?
Bio-medical areas, agriculture because of our strong commitment to agriculture. We’ve already had a long relationship with Punjab Agriculture University. Other areas are sustainability, energy and food production and security. We also want to have partnerships for faculty research and student exchanges. There are about 96,000 Indian students in the US but a few American students in India. We want to change that.We are going to require all our students to have a passport.

From when?
Starting next fall.

What kind of partnerships do you plan to have in India?
We are trying to focus on a few things — joint research, dual degrees, faculty and student exchanges and training programmes (for working people).

Has the slowdown affected the applications from Indian aspirants?
The interest from India continues. We intend (increasing) the number of Indian students. And we want to have more of our (US) students to come to our partners.