In her latest go to to India, Dr Carol Folt, president, College of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, led the ‘USC India – Accomplice the Future’ initiative that goals to attach with alumni, teachers, and aspiring students. The initiative additional goals to collaborate with Indian universities, strengthen partnerships, and create alternatives for tomorrow in India. In an interview with Schooling Occasions, Dr Folt spoke about their dedication to advancing gender fairness, specializing in secure campuses, and boosting analysis collaborations. Excerpts of the interview under:
The protection of scholars is without doubt one of the outstanding issues within the altering geopolitical conditions. What’s your tackle a few of the challenges confronted by worldwide college students?
Effectively, my take first is that Los Angeles is a really multicultural metropolis, which supplies significance to cross-understanding. So, if I have been an Indian mum or dad and anxious about my youngsters, I’d really feel very snug about that as a result of it’s a large metropolis which has metropolis points. However you’re additionally not going into a spot the place individuals are not welcoming. It’s an immigrant metropolis the place the natives are constructive about individuals coming in.
We put tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into the protection of our campus as we’re involved about college students residing away from residence. Now we have officers for scholar safety and our campus closes at night time so we are able to preserve individuals secure. Once we take a look at these security statistics, we’re fairly secure. We should train college students find out how to be in an enormous metropolis in a really completely different world. They be taught issues that stay helpful endlessly. An growing variety of our Indian college students need to return to India, we would like them to take again the ability units which are going to make them leaders of their communities.
Might you give an outline of the rising enthusiasm and relevance of analysis throughout sectors? Are you able to quantify the place India stands within the subject of analysis?
The US and China are the 2 most dominant international locations working in analysis areas, by way of {dollars} (funding and profitability). By way of progress, India is actually doing higher though one can’t quantify it. The nation is independently rising in analysis areas. It’s having a burst within the progress of universities; most different international locations should not. Indian universities are rising. So, the per cent share is barely growing and rising quick.
Throughout your tenure as the top of the Affiliation of American Universities (AAU), what have been the initiatives taken by you to strengthen the partnership with India?
Throughout my time period as Chair of the AAU, the administrations of Prime Minister Modi and President Biden signed a bilateral settlement in January 2023 to boost the sharing of applied sciences throughout authorities, enterprise, and better schooling.
To speed up this sharing, the AAU, below my management final April, established a process drive on Increasing US-India college partnerships. This process drive launched a report recommending, amongst different issues, that the 2 international locations set up joint analysis institutes centered on key scientific and societal challenges, in addition to to ease journey for college students and researchers to check, collaborate, share, and help the event of one another’s human capital and bodily analysis infrastructure. Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi College of Engineering, is a key member of the AAU India Activity Power.
How do you propose to encourage deserving Indian college students with restricted monetary assets to check at USC since it’s costly for a mean scholar?
USC supplies monetary assist to worldwide college students within the type of merit-based scholarships, completely for undergraduate college students, and on-campus work, open to all college students. My objective is to develop extra sources of funding to make our college extra accessible to gifted college students globally. We’re additionally encouraging our alumni and the Indian enterprise group to contemplate contributing to a brand new fund we have now created to assist present extra monetary help for Indian college students.
Regardless of a rise in Indian college students’ mobility, the variety of women travelling for schooling remains to be fewer. How can we encourage extra women to check abroad?
Advancing gender fairness has been the motto and we have now had a well-balanced scholar gender distribution, the place feminine college students are barely greater than male college students. The Viterbi College of Engineering is without doubt one of the few High 10 Engineering colleges that has 50% feminine college students, and The Marshall College of Enterprise too has 50% of ladies college students.
Now we have superb Indian feminine college students, who’re nice leaders. They’re decided, type, beneficiant, and respectful. Annually, our notable prize recipients typically embrace college students from India, with a noteworthy emphasis on feminine college students who persistently have a robust voice.
Our ongoing dedication to advancing gender fairness is mirrored within the continued efforts of our Workplace for Fairness, Equal Alternative, and Title IX (EEO-TIX), established in August 2020. The workplace is devoted to selling fairness, equal alternative, and inclusion in varied college programmes and actions, together with admissions and employment. By the supply of prevention, schooling, and coaching programmes, the workplace actively works to advertise and defend the civil rights of all members of the college group.
There are a number of analysis collaborations between teachers/researchers in India and USA. How can we be certain that it’s fruitful for each international locations?
USC analysis spending surpassed $1 billion for the primary time, as per the federal stories. The spending included important investments in computing, well being and sustainability. We’re focussing on supercharging our partnership.
I’m a toddler of an immigrant household, who got here to America to have an opportunity to do nice issues. Increased schooling in any nation promotes the development of society. The extra related our international locations are, the extra probability we have now for a peaceable world. So, in that means, it’s equally vital to us because the Indian market is increasing. Each nation desires to not solely have markets in its personal nation however desires to have world connections.
Being a professor in organic sciences, and a researcher of steel toxicity, you’ve centered on sustainability improvement objectives (SDG) because the core space of your work. How can universities reinforce their energies in attaining SDGs?
We’re dedicated to the objectives, and USC is without doubt one of the leaders, that began with getting our campus clear. Now we’re working in LA metropolis and in addition implementing the objectives on the LA harbours.
We’re additionally engaged on inexperienced drugs as drugs manufacturing is contributing to 10% of the carbon emissions on the earth. We’re in one of many areas working to develop new clear hospitals. I feel universities should be developing with newer applied sciences, and use their expertise, analysis, and schooling to help SDG. Ranging from the campus, we should work domestically and develop out later.
The protection of scholars is without doubt one of the outstanding issues within the altering geopolitical conditions. What’s your tackle a few of the challenges confronted by worldwide college students?
Effectively, my take first is that Los Angeles is a really multicultural metropolis, which supplies significance to cross-understanding. So, if I have been an Indian mum or dad and anxious about my youngsters, I’d really feel very snug about that as a result of it’s a large metropolis which has metropolis points. However you’re additionally not going into a spot the place individuals are not welcoming. It’s an immigrant metropolis the place the natives are constructive about individuals coming in.
We put tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} into the protection of our campus as we’re involved about college students residing away from residence. Now we have officers for scholar safety and our campus closes at night time so we are able to preserve individuals secure. Once we take a look at these security statistics, we’re fairly secure. We should train college students find out how to be in an enormous metropolis in a really completely different world. They be taught issues that stay helpful endlessly. An growing variety of our Indian college students need to return to India, we would like them to take again the ability units which are going to make them leaders of their communities.
Might you give an outline of the rising enthusiasm and relevance of analysis throughout sectors? Are you able to quantify the place India stands within the subject of analysis?
The US and China are the 2 most dominant international locations working in analysis areas, by way of {dollars} (funding and profitability). By way of progress, India is actually doing higher though one can’t quantify it. The nation is independently rising in analysis areas. It’s having a burst within the progress of universities; most different international locations should not. Indian universities are rising. So, the per cent share is barely growing and rising quick.
Throughout your tenure as the top of the Affiliation of American Universities (AAU), what have been the initiatives taken by you to strengthen the partnership with India?
Throughout my time period as Chair of the AAU, the administrations of Prime Minister Modi and President Biden signed a bilateral settlement in January 2023 to boost the sharing of applied sciences throughout authorities, enterprise, and better schooling.
To speed up this sharing, the AAU, below my management final April, established a process drive on Increasing US-India college partnerships. This process drive launched a report recommending, amongst different issues, that the 2 international locations set up joint analysis institutes centered on key scientific and societal challenges, in addition to to ease journey for college students and researchers to check, collaborate, share, and help the event of one another’s human capital and bodily analysis infrastructure. Yannis Yortsos, dean of the USC Viterbi College of Engineering, is a key member of the AAU India Activity Power.
How do you propose to encourage deserving Indian college students with restricted monetary assets to check at USC since it’s costly for a mean scholar?
USC supplies monetary assist to worldwide college students within the type of merit-based scholarships, completely for undergraduate college students, and on-campus work, open to all college students. My objective is to develop extra sources of funding to make our college extra accessible to gifted college students globally. We’re additionally encouraging our alumni and the Indian enterprise group to contemplate contributing to a brand new fund we have now created to assist present extra monetary help for Indian college students.
Regardless of a rise in Indian college students’ mobility, the variety of women travelling for schooling remains to be fewer. How can we encourage extra women to check abroad?
Advancing gender fairness has been the motto and we have now had a well-balanced scholar gender distribution, the place feminine college students are barely greater than male college students. The Viterbi College of Engineering is without doubt one of the few High 10 Engineering colleges that has 50% feminine college students, and The Marshall College of Enterprise too has 50% of ladies college students.
Now we have superb Indian feminine college students, who’re nice leaders. They’re decided, type, beneficiant, and respectful. Annually, our notable prize recipients typically embrace college students from India, with a noteworthy emphasis on feminine college students who persistently have a robust voice.
Our ongoing dedication to advancing gender fairness is mirrored within the continued efforts of our Workplace for Fairness, Equal Alternative, and Title IX (EEO-TIX), established in August 2020. The workplace is devoted to selling fairness, equal alternative, and inclusion in varied college programmes and actions, together with admissions and employment. By the supply of prevention, schooling, and coaching programmes, the workplace actively works to advertise and defend the civil rights of all members of the college group.
There are a number of analysis collaborations between teachers/researchers in India and USA. How can we be certain that it’s fruitful for each international locations?
USC analysis spending surpassed $1 billion for the primary time, as per the federal stories. The spending included important investments in computing, well being and sustainability. We’re focussing on supercharging our partnership.
I’m a toddler of an immigrant household, who got here to America to have an opportunity to do nice issues. Increased schooling in any nation promotes the development of society. The extra related our international locations are, the extra probability we have now for a peaceable world. So, in that means, it’s equally vital to us because the Indian market is increasing. Each nation desires to not solely have markets in its personal nation however desires to have world connections.
Being a professor in organic sciences, and a researcher of steel toxicity, you’ve centered on sustainability improvement objectives (SDG) because the core space of your work. How can universities reinforce their energies in attaining SDGs?
We’re dedicated to the objectives, and USC is without doubt one of the leaders, that began with getting our campus clear. Now we’re working in LA metropolis and in addition implementing the objectives on the LA harbours.
We’re additionally engaged on inexperienced drugs as drugs manufacturing is contributing to 10% of the carbon emissions on the earth. We’re in one of many areas working to develop new clear hospitals. I feel universities should be developing with newer applied sciences, and use their expertise, analysis, and schooling to help SDG. Ranging from the campus, we should work domestically and develop out later.