US looks for ways to send students to Mumbai

A US delegation comprising of 10 universities and colleges was in Mumbai to explore collaborations with institutes like the Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (Tiss).

The thrust areas include student and faculty exchanges, internship for students as well as joint academic and research programmes.

“It’s a week-long study tour in India where we are visiting potential Indian partner campuses and international organisations in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi. This is the first step where we discussed the probable areas of our partnership,” said Patricia Willer, associate vice president for international programmes, University of South Carolina.

She added, “At NMIMS, for instance, we can see opportunities for building relations in areas like engineering, technology and perhaps in business.”

“It was our first meeting with the delegation and there could be possibilities for collaboration in student and faculty exchanges to begin with. We have also received proposals for dual degree programmes. We also see opportunities to work together with some of them in upcoming sectors such as energy management and infrastructure management,” said Rajan Saxena, NMIMS director.

Led by the Institute of International Education (IIE), the delegation are visiting India as part of the International Academic Partnership Programme, funded by the US Department of Education’s Fund. The delegation was in Mumbai on Tuesday.

“We are looking at strategic partnerships. By that we just don’t mean mere memorandum of understanding which go to the cold storage. Instead we want individual institutes to think of partnerships which will involve the institutes and will be mutually beneficial,” said Daniel Obst, deputy vice president, international partnerships, IIE.