By Ketul PatelThe Daily Northwestern
The McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has agreed to establish an exchange program with the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
It is the latest of several such agreements McCormick has made with international universities, mostly so far in Europe. IIT Bombay is one of India’s most prestigious universities. Recognized world-wide for its excellence in teaching engineers, USA Today called it the “MIT of India.”
Vinayak Dravid, professor of material sciences and engineering at McCormick and an alumnus of IIT Bombay, coordinated the program. He said the collaboration was an important step in a global economy.
“With high-speed internet and transportation, the world is becoming very small,” Dravid said. “You may get your degree at NU but end up working in Southeast Asia. American students will have to compete in a global market.”
The schools have signed a memorandum of understanding agreeing to create the undergraduate and faculty exchange as well as collaborative research efforts.
Dravid said three students from NU will attend IIT Bombay in Spring and Summer Quarters 2007, while two IIT Bombay students will attend NU in Winter Quarter 2006 and Spring Quarter 2007. The NU students will also complete an internship while in India.
“Not only will they have the formal education, they will also learn the philosophy of research in IIT Bombay,” Dravid said. “We want them to conduct research to feed off of each other’s strengths. We want them to see how research gets done in India.”
Ram Kelkar, director of the IIT Bombay alumni fund, said he is pleased that NU and IIT Bombay have agreed to collaborate. He said the exchange represents a mutually beneficial situation for both colleges. IIT Bombay has signed memorandi with other U.S. colleges, including Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard University.
“As an IIT Bombay alumnus and a neighbor of Northwestern, I think it’s tremendous that Northwestern is participating in a global exchange like this with IIT Bombay,” Kelkar said. “We want to foster connections between U.S. colleges and IIT Bombay.”
Dravid said this will provide engineering students an opportunity to study abroad.
“Science and engineering students typically have not been able to study abroad,” Dravid said. “We want our students to also learn about the culture and about science in a local context.”
Faculty from both universities also will visit the other school for short periods of time, Dravid said. He said he anticipates the NU professors’ visits to IIT Bombay to last from a week to 10 days. Some of the Indian professors might take sabbaticals to conduct research at NU, Dravid said.
McCormick senior Matt Gallovic said the program will offer McCormick students more opportunities to work cooperatively with Indian students.
“I think it’s very beneficial to McCormick,” Gallovic said. “Different cultures have different points of views to different problems, and the program would bring together these different ideas.”
The program will receive its funding from the National Science Foundation in the United States and the Indian Department of Science and Technology.
“(The funding) makes the program sustainable,” he said. “The funding mechanism will allow faculties to conduct research.”
Elizabeth Lyons, the regional coordinator for Africa, Near-East and South Asia in NSF’s Office of International Science and Engineering, said NSF encourages U.S. scientists and students to conduct collaborative projects.
“NSF’s job is to enable U.S. scientists to do better science,” she said. “What we know is that some phenomena and facilities are spread all over the world.”
Reach Ketul Patel at [email protected].
