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I don't know what to make of this.
Is it possible to build a university and a university town just like that, from scratch, in a period of two decades? Specially one which is supposed to have 1,00,000 students? And a town population of 5,00,000?
First, a bit of the context.
Anil Argawal is an Indian businessman, and the founder of Vedanta Resources.
He is one of India's richest people, and somewhere around the 250th richest man in the world. His personal fortune is worth 4.5B$ USD. He has founded the Anil Agrawal foundation. He has given an endowment of a billion dollars to to found a university called "Vedanta University". The total outlay for the project is about 3.2B$ USD. The plan is to build a university along with a town.
I'll quote Wiki for the details:
According to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, the university is being modeled most closely on Stanford, Harvard and Oxford universities and aims to be a peer institution to them in terms of world class research and education. Unlike other smaller prominent institutions in India which are focussed entirely on technical education, the planned university would be multidisciplinary in nature, encompassing all domains of human endeavor. It will provide the "finest quality of education" in liberal arts, law, medicine, business, humanities, basic sciences and engineering. The university will house nine interdisciplinary centers of excellence in areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology. It will support approximately 100,000 undergraduate, masters and doctoral students enrolled in 95 disciplines, and employ a few thousand internationally renowned faculty members, making it one of the largest universities in the world, says Agarwal. Vedanta University will have a roughly equal mix of Indian and foreign students. The admission of students would be need-blind and based on merit.
The university will be governed by a board of trustees drawn from industry and society. It will be headed by a provost & chief academic officer. The various schools and colleges within Vedanta University will be led by a few deans who would be recruited locally within India as well as internationally. In order to stimulate cutting-edge research, each center of excellence will include five to eight professors of international caliber. At the present time, the university authorities are scouting for faculty of the highest caliber, including Nobel laureates. The government of Orissa will pass legislation specifically to provide complete administrative and fiscal autonomy to the new university.
According to newspaper reports, Vedanta University will be developed in several phases until its planned completion in 2025. However, the university is expected to start admitting its first batch of around 3,500 students as early as 2009, into its engineering, liberal arts, and basic science programs. Most academic schools, including those of law and performing arts, as well as a few centers of excellence would be in place by 2016. Eventually, the Anil Agarwal Foundation hopes that Vedanta University would stem the annual exodus of Indian students seeking higher education abroad, out of which about 80,000 head for the USA alone.
Now my question here is, can you simply pour tons of money into a big-ass institution, hire the best people money can buy, and expect it to work? Is it even possible to simply "create" something as complex as a university, just like that? Specially with the final projected size - 1,00,000 students and a few thousand faculty members, in 95 disciplines, covering all aspects of human endeavour? Isn't a "build-up" time of some sort required? Some time to get it all together?
And it does seem rather.... arrogant, TBH, to build something this big. Reminds me of the tower of Babel. It's almost as if the founder is going out of his way to tempt fate. Either that, or they're supremely confident.
Link
(I didn't want to mess up the thread, so please click the above link and see the image full-size.)
Now I can't dismiss it as just hot air, because the people involved have even signed a MOU with the local state government, giving them complete autonomy in the running of the university.
How viable does this thing look? Can it succeed? Most people on this board are from the USA, so you have a better perspective on large institutions and universities. Do you think this can work?
Is it possible to build a university and a university town just like that, from scratch, in a period of two decades? Specially one which is supposed to have 1,00,000 students? And a town population of 5,00,000?
First, a bit of the context.
Anil Argawal is an Indian businessman, and the founder of Vedanta Resources.
He is one of India's richest people, and somewhere around the 250th richest man in the world. His personal fortune is worth 4.5B$ USD. He has founded the Anil Agrawal foundation. He has given an endowment of a billion dollars to to found a university called "Vedanta University". The total outlay for the project is about 3.2B$ USD. The plan is to build a university along with a town.
I'll quote Wiki for the details:
According to the Anil Agarwal Foundation, the university is being modeled most closely on Stanford, Harvard and Oxford universities and aims to be a peer institution to them in terms of world class research and education. Unlike other smaller prominent institutions in India which are focussed entirely on technical education, the planned university would be multidisciplinary in nature, encompassing all domains of human endeavor. It will provide the "finest quality of education" in liberal arts, law, medicine, business, humanities, basic sciences and engineering. The university will house nine interdisciplinary centers of excellence in areas such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information technology. It will support approximately 100,000 undergraduate, masters and doctoral students enrolled in 95 disciplines, and employ a few thousand internationally renowned faculty members, making it one of the largest universities in the world, says Agarwal. Vedanta University will have a roughly equal mix of Indian and foreign students. The admission of students would be need-blind and based on merit.
The university will be governed by a board of trustees drawn from industry and society. It will be headed by a provost & chief academic officer. The various schools and colleges within Vedanta University will be led by a few deans who would be recruited locally within India as well as internationally. In order to stimulate cutting-edge research, each center of excellence will include five to eight professors of international caliber. At the present time, the university authorities are scouting for faculty of the highest caliber, including Nobel laureates. The government of Orissa will pass legislation specifically to provide complete administrative and fiscal autonomy to the new university.
According to newspaper reports, Vedanta University will be developed in several phases until its planned completion in 2025. However, the university is expected to start admitting its first batch of around 3,500 students as early as 2009, into its engineering, liberal arts, and basic science programs. Most academic schools, including those of law and performing arts, as well as a few centers of excellence would be in place by 2016. Eventually, the Anil Agarwal Foundation hopes that Vedanta University would stem the annual exodus of Indian students seeking higher education abroad, out of which about 80,000 head for the USA alone.
And it does seem rather.... arrogant, TBH, to build something this big. Reminds me of the tower of Babel. It's almost as if the founder is going out of his way to tempt fate. Either that, or they're supremely confident.
Link
(I didn't want to mess up the thread, so please click the above link and see the image full-size.)
Now I can't dismiss it as just hot air, because the people involved have even signed a MOU with the local state government, giving them complete autonomy in the running of the university.
How viable does this thing look? Can it succeed? Most people on this board are from the USA, so you have a better perspective on large institutions and universities. Do you think this can work?
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