Expanding UCSC's international presence and engagement

Unit Managers: Please post a paper copy of this message in your area for people who do not have regular computer access.

One of my top priorities as chancellor is to expand UCSC's presence and engagement on the global stage, building our profile in ways that will foster research collaborations and student exchange opportunities, increase diversity, and bring additional resources to campus.

Stronger international relationships will benefit the campus in three key ways:

• Faculty will enjoy greater opportunities for research and scholarly engagement with peers around the world.

• More robust student-exchange programs will enable UCSC students to experience the world as global citizens -- and benefit the campus by bringing more international exchange students to UCSC.

• Enrolling more nonresident students will enhance diversity on campus and bring additional revenues.

To be successful, we must take a coordinated approach as we reach out to international and government agencies, research and nonprofit organizations, high schools and universities, and private-sector companies.

I am pleased to announce that UCSC Foundation Board Trustee Dr. Anuradha Luther Maitra will oversee our campuswide international initiatives and programs as Special Advisor to the Chancellor for International Initiatives. Her charge includes enhancing the university’s global visibility, helping to establish strategic international partnerships, guiding and supporting faculty engagement in our internationalization efforts, supporting campus fundraising activities, and collaborating with campus leaders for undergraduate education and graduate studies and research.

Anu is uniquely suited to this challenge. She received her Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University and subsequently taught in the UC system and the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University. She is a successful Silicon Valley business leader, and has served as the president and chief executive officer of Floreat, Inc. since 2000. She also has deep ties to UCSC: She taught economics here in the 1980s and has been a trustee on the UCSC Foundation Board since 2000, including a two-year term as president from 2005-07. Her accomplishments as a trustee include helping secure three faculty endowed chairs, establishing and endowing the Sidhartha Maitra Memorial Lecture series that has brought stellar international speakers to campus, and helping shape the South Asia Studies Program.

In 2007, Anu joined former UC President Robert Dynes as part of a high-level delegation that traveled to India to strengthen UC research and educational collaborations, and she accompanied UCSC Chancellor Emerita MRC Greenwood to India in 1998, facilitating meetings with business and political leaders, including current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Anu will serve on a 60 percent basis for a two-year term, subject to renewal. Please join me in thanking her for joining UCSC in this new, much-needed capacity. She can be contacted at anu@ucsc.edu.