Dr. Jamshed Bharucha, Vice Chancellor, SRM University – AP, Amaravati represents India at the Rockefeller Foundation’s Working Conference on “Architecting the Future Global University”
Amaravati: SRM University – AP, Amaravati, participated in the 4-day working conference “Architecting the Future Global University”. The conference was organized by the New York based Rockefeller Foundation and tackled a two-fold concern for educational institutions worldwide – quality education remains inaccessible to millions of students and the branded residential institution model does not scale to global demand.
Global education is not a catchword anymore. It is the new reality for education in the coming decades.“The global University is the best opportunity to meet the education challenges of the future”, says Dr. Jamshed Bharucha, Vice Chancellor, SRM University – AP, Amaravati.
SRM University – AP, Amaravati had the honour of being the only Indian institution to be represented at this prestigious education event. Vice Chancellor Dr. Jamshed Bharucha joined a select gathering of twenty higher education and intellectual thought leaders invited to produce a model action plan for the future university as a vibrant global force.
The conference is the brainchild of John Mitchell (Professor of Computer Science and former Vice Provost at Stanford), Robert Lue (Harvard), and Simone Buitendijk (Imperial College, Leiden University Medical Centre). Participants included David Leebron, President of Rice University and Jim Chandler of the University of Chicago.
At a time when the needs are far greater than the capacity of any single institution the mandate was to bring together the world’s most innovative and entrepreneurial minds to devise a suitable approach to strategic planning. Recognizing that global challenges cannot be solved by any one discipline methodology, or accepted set of scholarly practices, the participants examined ways to architect a truly inclusive university that knows no impediments to world-wide learning and applied research collaboration.
“Traditional universities are not designed to address the surging global demand for quality higher education”, Dr. Bharucha points out, “We explored innovative solutions that create networks of universities and employ the best technology to bring students and faculty together from across the world. SRM Amaravati already plays a key role being the only participating institution that has the capacity to innovate in ways that entrenched institutions cannot.”
The question of what kind of a work force will be best equipped for the future underscores a pressing need for a global ecosystem that supports accessible, diverse, varied and effective lifelong learning. A dramatic shift is already underway in how universities teach and how they engage students in learning and preparing for their futures.
World-class research, for example, is a global project and truly global universities like SRM recognize the benefits of strategic partnerships with other universities, with businesses, with civil society, with governments; and also are quick to adopt systems and practices that have global relevance.