Harvard to Open India Office

When Amar C. Bakshi ’06 founded an arts program for disadvantaged children in northern India last year, he had to organize most of the logistics for the program, which sent 11 Harvard students to the country, himself.

But for students traveling to India in the future, Harvard’s South Asia Initiative (SAI)—a group of programs promoting scholarship, research and travel to the region—intends to make the journey a little easier.

A new SAI office slated to open in Mumbai—the city known as Bombay until its official name changed in 1995—will provide students with information, contacts and funding for academic programs and social work in India.

The office, which will be adjacent to the Global Research Center Harvard Business School will open within a year, will not offer any classes of its own. Instead, it will use its connections with existing universities and research programs to help students draft their own course of study.

According to SAI Assistant Director Rena Fonseca, the program will do more than help coordinate students’ larger academic goals and will “orient Harvard students and faculty to India.”

“In time, our Mumbai office should also have useful contacts and information on safe places to stay, doctors, visa and passport information,” Fonseca wrote in an e-mail.

The new office in Mumbai will be one of a handful Harvard is setting up overseas. Currently, the Harvard College Study Abroad Program in Santiago, Chile allows Spanish-speaking students to enroll directly in local universities. This summer will mark the launch of the Harvard Beijing Academy, one of nine study abroad programs offered by the University this summer.

The China and Mumbai programs come on the heels of last spring’s curricular review recommendations which advocated an “expectation” of international experience for all non-international undergraduates.

SAI has not set a specific date for the opening of the office. But Fonseca noted that the SAI will already increase the availability of funding for students who wish to travel to India this year through a spring grant competition.

Jane Edwards, director of Harvard’s Office of International Programs (OIP), said that the new program represents an effort “to get the best possible collection of opportunities for students.”

Fonseca wrote that students may eventually get course credit for both academic and social work, coordinated through the office.

Since English is a predominant language in India, even students with limited or no knowledge of Hindi will be able to study abroad through the new program, Fonseca noted. She added that the lack of a language barrier could hopefully attract a variety of students.

“Our hope is to make such an experience available to many more students, including, for example, science concentrators who have typically not traveled abroad as much as humanities concentrators,” she wrote.

Bakshi, a Social Studies and Visual and Environmental Studies concentrator, said that his experience with the Aina Arts program, the educational program in northern India last summer, was extremely rewarding.

“Every Harvard undergrad needs to get a sense of the wider world,” he said.

And many students seem to agree. Bakshi said he has already received 65 applications from Harvard students alone for the 12 slots available for this year’s Aina Arts effort. Last year he received a total of 250 applications.

Bakshi expects that study abroad programs in India will become even more popular once the SAI Mumbai office opens. “I think people will start coming in droves,” he said. “It’s a wonderful service they’re doing. Having someone there from Harvard is invaluable.”