January 24th 2019 was the day when SRM University, Andhra Pradesh had its annual board meeting and landmark conference, which included strategy meetings with the VC advisory board, to hammer out details for a competitive vision and future for the university. Among the SRM AP board of governors and management, the participants of the meeting included P. Sathyanarayanan, President, SRM AP; Jamshed Bharucha, Vice Chancellor, SRM AP; Elizabeth Bradley, President, Vassar College;. The panel also included the likes of Nicholas Dirks, Emeritus Chairman, UC Berkeley; Pradeep Khosla, Chancellor, UC San Diego; Prasant Mohapatra, Vice Chancellor Research, University of California, Davis; Kerry Healey, President, Babson College; and Damodar Acharya, Former Director, IIT Kharagpur. In addition, there were leading academics from Tufts, Dartmouth, UC Berkeley, Cooper Union, Brown University, Georgia State, Olin College of Engineering, Vassar, University of California, San Diego, University of Massachusetts, Harvard, Syracuse University, and Babson College. Among these, some distinguished leaders in their disciplines such as Teresa Dahlberg, Dean of Engineering, Syracuse; Patricia Jackson, VP Development, Brown; Margaret Newell, Deputy Provost, Harvard; Rajini Srikanth, Dean, Liberal Arts School, University of Massachusetts; and Niranjan Bose, Senior Advisor, Bill Gates foundation, also took part in the conference.
During the conference, SRM AP Vice Chancellor, Jamshed Bharucha explained, “We aspire to stand apart and distinguish ourselves with programs that are academically outstanding, student-centric and globally connected.” At present, SRM AP offers degree programs in Engineering and Liberal Arts and they have collaborations with MIT and UC Berkeley. The university is now embarking on a significant expansion plan with greater resources and programs for faculty research and they have the aim to enhance the student learning experience, through international collaborations for innovative and technology driven pedagogies like addition of active learning forums into the curriculum.
