University President Wallace Loh and Gov. Martin O’Malley will travel to India at the end of next month to increase collaboration with the country’s top universities and businesses, as well as foster partnerships to expand innovation and entrepreneurship, Loh announced.
Although Loh said he initially declined O’Malley’s invitation earlier this semester to travel abroad, he later agreed after a group of nearly 25 Indian university presidents visited the campus and met with him two weeks ago. Although the agenda has yet to be finalized, Loh said discussions will likely revolve around possible partnerships to expand this university’s global reach, further develop study abroad programs in India and broaden the international job market for students.
While Loh has focused on improving this university’s relationship with China — he and O’Malley visited the country over the summer — since taking the helm as president nearly a year ago, he said discussions with the Indian presidents made him realize this university has much to gain by revamping its relationship with India.
“The possibilities of partnering with [Indian universities and companies] are enormous, so all 20 university presidents begged me to go to India,” Loh said. “If the center of gravity in the 21st century is Asia, which are the two principal countries that are at that center? … I said I have to be where the action is It’s not only in China; it’s also in India.”
Loh said he hopes the trip will attract more of this university’s students to study abroad in India. While Chinese students constitute most of the campus’ foreign students, he said India is a close second — but Indian officials want more American students at their universities before they send more of their students here, Loh said.
“If we’re going to collaborate and compete with each other, we need to send more Americans abroad,” Loh said. “They want to send more of their students to Maryland, but they also want Maryland to send more of their students to them.”
State and higher education officials said developing partnerships and increasing educational opportunities abroad will lead to more job creation and business growth.
“Education and jobs are directly linked,” said Raquel Guillory, an O’Malley spokeswoman. “To succeed in this innovation economy, you need to have world-class educational institutions that help educate our citizens to succeed and obtain these jobs. That positions Maryland much better in getting a highly skilled, trained, educated work force.”
According to The Baltimore Sun, O’Malley’s 10-day mission to China, which included nearly 70 officials for different parts of it, cost taxpayers $164,000. However, O’Malley estimated that the China trip netted $85 million in deals between Maryland and Asian companies.
But Loh said the trip isn’t just about building partnerships — U.S. officials also hope to improve Indian universities to increase competition between the two countries.
“We want to both collaborate and compete,” Loh said. “The future is not collaboration or competition, it’s both. It’s what I call collaptition: we will partner with them, and by golly we will compete with them.”
And because officials succeeded in partnering with Chinese businesses and universities on their trip last semester, they said they have high expectations for next month’s trip.
“We hope in India, we would be able to match or even exceed the success we saw in China,” Guillory said. “It’s important for us to make sure our educational institutions are able to offer a wide variety of opportunities for its students. It provides them a much broader knowledge and there are so many opportunities available globally for both the university and its students.”
Loh said the trip to India — as well as trips to other countries in the future — is one of the first steps in lifting the nation out of an economic recession.
“The global theme I think today is basically job creation. That’s the number one issue in the world,” he said. “If you have job creation … that’s what’s going to pull people out to the next level of quality of life, but to have that kind of job creation you need to have education.”
Staff writer Rebecca Lurye contributed to this report. abutaleb@umdbk.com
