‘We believe in making education experiential’

Barbara Will, vice provost for academic initiatives and a professor of English at Dartmouth, and Bob Lesher, senior vice president for institutional advancement at the Ivy League university Hindustan Times, Said in an interview that Dartmouth is also considering student exchange programs and social entrepreneurship collaborations in India. Both are on a week-long visit to India. Edited excerpts:

The government is taking various initiatives for global educational collaboration. Will Dartmouth tie up with an Indian university?

Will: Currently, we work with over 40 institutions around the world. We had a program in Gender Studies and Anthropology with the University of Hyderabad which had to be called off amid the Covid pandemic. We want to have more programs like this in India and create flexible study-abroad experiences. We are looking to collaborate with social entrepreneurs in India and bring some graduate students from Dartmouth to work with them. We are meeting officials from various universities during our visit to discuss possible collaborations.

India has recently issued guidelines for foreign higher education institutions to set up campuses here. Would Dartmouth be interested in setting up a campus in India?

Will: We are not yet at the stage of setting up a campus in a foreign location and I don’t know if we will be in the near future. We still have to ascertain the longevity of such complexes. But, we would certainly be interested in exploring further collaborations with Indian higher education institutions.

Lasher: Find partnerships and collaborations the way your government is saying. Universities globally, including Dartmouth, are currently looking at opportunities. [in India] Both in terms of attracting talented students or by way of potential partnerships with Indian universities.

Dartmouth is known for its liberal arts and multidisciplinary approach. Why do you think it is important for the overall development of the students?

Will: At Dartmouth, we incorporate science and math into the liberal arts courses. We cover a wide range of courses from English to Biology. The liberal arts give you a sense of possibility and openness and a better understanding of what’s at stake when you face things head-on. This is where technical education falls short. If technical education gives you a vocabulary for the world, liberal arts education gives you the terms and grammar to understand the world. According to me studies should be in between two subjects. For example, students at Dartmouth get to study English, science, and psychology together, and then they wonder how everything ties together. It gives a flexible mind to the students.

How do you provide flexibility for students to pursue multiple subjects?

Will: Dartmouth has flexible year-round planning for students. We have four semesters in a year – summer, winter, fall and spring. Students can choose from the terms they wish to study. This is a real innovation. Within that flexible structure, there is scope to study abroad. Dartmouth is known for its study-abroad programs. It is possible for students to study in India in the summer, come back to Dartmouth in the winter and go on to another country and internship in the spring. Students can make their own calendar as per their interest. We believe in making education experiential. We have leave-term and off-campus programmes, whereby students can study on the university campus for a term, and at the end of the term, they can move to another site and apply the ideas they have studied. can be brought in. For example, last fall, there was a course on the Holocaust. The students went to Berlin for three weeks to talk to people, see museums, and get an in-depth experience.

Lesher: At least 60% of undergraduates at Dartmouth participate in some type of study abroad experience.

Do you think students pursuing liberal arts and multidisciplinary degrees are job ready?

Will: Yes, they are. I think the job market is hungry to hire students with degrees in multiple disciplines. They gain skills of resilience, leadership and communication.

Lesher: For a long time, at least at Dartmouth we educate students and then let them decide their career outlook. We’ve got a new commitment to it.

What changes in policies has Dartmouth seen amid the COVID-19 pandemic? Any notable challenges for the students?

Will: The university has recently become “need-blind” for its candidates regardless of their citizenship. This means that applications are reviewed and accepted based solely on a student’s merit, not their ability to pay. In the past, international students were treated the same. Different from domestic students. Now, any student applying from anywhere in the world can be considered need independent… Among students, we have seen enormous mental health issues. There was a lot of concern about what had been lost in their social context of education and the sheer uncertainty about the future. We have launched several initiatives to address this.

The number of students going to the US for higher education has increased in recent years. Has Dartmouth seen the same trend?

Lasher: There are approximately 200 Indian students on our undergraduate campus, and they are the second largest group of international students. Most of the students are pursuing undergraduate courses.

Bequest: Most of the Indian students come to pursue STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses. But many of them move into different disciplines, including the humanities and social sciences, during their tenure. We look forward to seeing more Indian students apply in non-STEM fields.

What do you think Indian higher education institutions can do to attract more international students?

Will: At Dartmouth, we have admissions officers who are globally oriented. They visit different countries and cover a wide variety of schools and spend a lot of time with students and their counterparts there. They give comprehensive presentations to the students. This is one area that Indian universities can really work on. Also, Indian universities can do more work on branding. For example, everyone knows about IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), but what about other good Indian universities? They can set up some kind of offices and centers in different countries for this.