Yale steps up collaboration with private university

Ashoka University, a new private liberal arts university in India, is expanding collaborations with Yale University in the United States, strengthening a collaboration that began five years ago, before Ashoka admitted its first student cohort in 2014.

It could eventually become a basis for a college on the lines of Yale’s collaboration with Singapore, according to observers.

Yale has been advising on and shaping Ashoka’s curriculum and infrastructure in the areas of admissions, development, student and faculty affairs.

The latest agreement, a memorandum of understanding between the two sides and signed by Ashoka’s Vice-chancellor Rudrangshu Mukherjee and Yale University President Peter Salovey during a visit by the Yale head to India last week, will enable the two institutions to explore further opportunities for visiting faculty, visiting students, and joint research and publications.

Yale faculty members have already taught and appeared as guest speakers at Ashoka University, which is situated in Haryana state, outside of the capital New Delhi.

Yale administrators have also advised in a range of areas of academic administration, and Ashoka staff have visited the Yale-NUS College – a collaboration between Yale and the National University of Singapore – in Singapore to see how the free-standing college, funded by the Singapore government and running the Yale liberal arts curriculum, functions.

As a private non-profit institution, Ashoka is free to collaborate with overseas partners without government approval. A number of universities in India already have transnational arrangements where they deliver degree courses devised and accredited by universities in Britain and the US.

Nurturing critical, innovative thinkers

Mukherjee, an Oxford-trained historian, shares the aims of Ashoka University’s overseas educated founders to break away from India’s examination-driven system and it is on a mission to nurture critical, innovative thinkers.

“Most of us involved in building Ashoka from day one believe this is probably the most meaningful thing we will ever do in our life,” Mukherjee told University World News.

For a long time, he added, education in the country has been driven by utility and usefulness, emphasising disciplines such as engineering and computer science.

“Indian industrialisation needed people trained in those areas, but now slowly the tide is turning and people are perceiving a gap in the education system where they feel that students need to have direct exposure to other ways of thinking to develop [their] faculties of critical thinking and better communication, to be more responsive to discussion and debate.”

Liberal arts education is needed to fill the void in the system.

Ashoka faculty members have the freedom to decide on the approaches for student assessments. Students are required to study wide-ranging foundation courses to broaden their mindset. “We will open up windows and doors that they previously didn't know existed,” Mukherjee said.

The university had originally planned to offer a four-year curriculum but after the proposal was rejected by the Indian government as part of the government’s reversion to a standard three-year undergraduate model throughout the country, Ashoka opted for the three-year model instead.

Mukherjee expressed confidence that a four-year curriculum could be launched, including semester-long experiential learning following further discussions now underway with Indian officials.

Salovey applauds Ashoka's founders

Yale’s Salovey applauded Ashoka’s founders for their courage to “re-think and re-imagine the possibilities for higher education in India, in collaboration with Yale and others around the world who are trying to do the same thing with respect to their own institutions, however well-established or respected”.

However, Salovey told India's Economic Times newspaper Yale would not build satellite campuses where the concern would be maintaining quality of faculty and students in satellite campuses and could create an “enclave where students don't really interact with the local culture”.

"Really what we would like to do is build partnerships where we bring things to the table that complement something an international partner – in this case India – would bring to the table."

"We'd create a programme that doesn't necessarily exist at either institution – we've done many of these in China."

Mukherjee and some key personnel of the university are currently visiting universities in North America to shore up ties with overseas institutions. The university already has exchange agreements with a number of overseas universities, including Sciences Po in Paris, and the universities of Michigan and Pennsylvania.

The Indian government policy think-tank NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog is preparing recommendations that would form the basis of a framework for foreign universities to set up campuses in India. Currently foreign institutions can operate in India only in partnership with Indian universities.