Focus will be to prepare students to become teachers.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: In an effort to spur interest in education and research in STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) fields of study, the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Ohio State University (OSU) have signed an agreement to create a state-of-the-art facility.
The new building will be called the OSU-AMU Center of Excellence in STEM Education and Research, and will be constructed at AMU’s campus in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. The Center will feature Internet connectivity in order to allow webcast lectures, high-definition television sets in each classroom, and other cutting edge digital equipment to make the Center one of the leading education facilities in the world.
Classes at the Center will be taught by a mix of faculty from both AMU and OSU, with both institutions agreeing to the development of a new STEM-ER program, which will aim to teach graduate students in India the skills they need to teach STEM programs at the undergraduate level. The STEM-ER program will be a dual-degree program, and will only be offered to a select few students that the faculty deem are the most capable in their class.
The announcement of the AMU-OSU partnership come just a couple of weeks after the University of Chicago revealed its plans to build a similar advanced research center in New Delhi. The roughly $3.45 million project will launch in March of 2014, and was built as confirmation of “the importance the University of Chicago places on global engagement and our commitment [to] India and South Asia particularly.”
Originally founded in 1875 as a place to train Muslims for government jobs and to prepare them for further education in Britain, AMU today is one of the premiere educational institutions in India, with a student population of close to 30,000. Ohio State University, founded in Columbus in 1870, is home to one of the highest student populations in the US, with just under 56,900 undergraduate and post-graduate students in attendance.
The AMU-OSU agreement was signed by AMU Pro-Vice Chancellor Brig. S. Ahmad Ali and Registrar Gr. Cap. Shahrukh Shamshad, along with OSU’s vice-provost for global strategies and international affairs William I. Brustein, and vice-president of business and finance Geoffrey S. Chatas. There is no set timeline for the Center’s construction, nor has an opening date for the Center been revealed yet.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com