For Immediate Release
Contact: Marilyn Wilkes (203) 432-3413
Yale and Jawaharlal Nehru University launch student exchange program
February 4, 2005. New Haven – On Jan. 3, during his visit to India, President Richard C. Levin inaugurated the Fox International Fellowships at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi.
JNU became the eighth university to partner with the University in the graduate exchange program that will annually send two Yale graduate students to JNU and bring two JNU graduate students to study on campus.
At the ceremony officially initiating the program, Levin told JNU students and faculty that “you have become one of the premier universities in India and in Asia at a time when this country and this region are assuming increased importance in global political and economic affairs.”
Founded in 1969 and named for India’s first prime minister and a leader of India’s independence movement, JNU is a comprehensive university offering studies through the doctoral level that has been regarded for interdisciplinary and international programs across its nine faculties and four special research centers on biotechnology, law and governance, molecular medicine and Sanskrit studies.
Developed and funded by Joseph Fox ‘38, the student exchange program started in 1989 between Yale and Moscow State University, in an effort to help improve relations between the United States and the former Soviet Union. The program now includes Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University (United Kingdom), the University of Tokyo (Japan), Fudan University (China), Institut d’Études de Politiques de Paris (France), the Free University of Berlin (Germany) and El Colegio de México (Mexico), as well as Moscow State and JNU.
The aim of the program is to promote international cooperation by enhancing the education of future leaders who may go on to positions that will allow them to contribute to decisions affecting global policies and international relations. The Fox Fellows’ fields of study reflect the areas around which many of the world’s major decisions revolve: law, economics, finance, business, political science, international relations and contemporary history.
The program is open to graduate and professional school students and graduating seniors at Yale College. Fellows are chosen for their academic excellence, leadership potential and the quality of their research project.
On average, two fellows from Yale spend a year at each partner university while two from each partner university spend a year at Yale. As Fox Fellows, they have full use of the resources of the host university, allowing them to undertake research, work with faculty, utilize archives and library resources, audit courses, take domestic professional development trips and interact with other students. All fellows, both incoming and outgoing, are fully funded by Yale.
The Fox International Fellowship Program has well over 200 alumni throughout the world, among them television journalists, heads of philanthropic foundations, lawyers and numerous academics.
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