Executive Summary

The STEM Faculty Project: Training the Next Generation of STEM Faculty at Higher Education Institutions in India

The highest priority for new higher education institutions in India is training the next generation of faculty needed to teach over 150 million prospective students. That is particularly true in Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) fields that are essential for a national scientific and technological foundation in the 21st Century. Over 50,000 new colleges and institutions of higher education are envisioned in order to serve the present and future needs of nearly 600 million young people under the age of 25 in India. Daunting as this task is, US and Indian universities are enthusiastic about rising to meet this historic challenge. As leading universities in the US and India respectively, with more than a century of service in higher education, the Ohio State University (OSU) and the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) have formed a partnership to launch a pilot project to train graduate students as world-class faculty in STEM subjects. In addition, it is recognized that continual involvement by STEM faculty in advanced scientific research is essential to this endeavor. Aided by considerable local support and commitment by both universities, the USIEF OSU-AMU STEM project seeks to accomplish the following goals.

• Establish a joint Center of Excellence in STEM Education and Research.
• Initiate a two-year dual-degree graduate program specializing in teaching STEM subjects and state-of-the-art research.
• Organize joint collaborations and conferences in new areas such as nanotechnology, biomedical research, and space and astrophysical studies.
• Employ digital e-learning technologies to reach large numbers of students mediated by current and newly trained STEM faculty at the Center.
• Expand the project by forming an Indo-US consortium of universities similarly dedicated to STEM education and research and national capacity building in faculty training.