Wellesley College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in Massachusetts, has entered into a partnership agreement with Ashoka University in Haryana, India. Ashoka bills itself as the “first private Ivy League-caliber liberal arts institution in India.”
One of the founders of the university is Harshbeena Sahney Zaveri, who was a magna cum laude graduate of Wellesley College in 1982. Zaveri is managing director and president of NRB Bearings and regularly appears on the Fortune magazine list of the most powerful businesswomen in India.
The five-year agreement calls for the joint development of course content, research collaborations for faculty members and students, faculty exchanges, and possible student exchanges and study abroad opportunities. Ashoka has similar partnership agreements with the University of Pennsylvania, Carleton College, the University of Michigan, Yale University, and the University of California, Berkeley.
Neelima Shukla-Bhatt, associate professor and director of the South Asia studies program at Wellesley College, said that “the collaboration between Wellesley College and Ashoka University promises to be a deeply meaningful international partnership in higher education. Both institutions share the foundational principles of academic excellence as well as service to humanity; and importantly, they are firmly committed to the empowerment of women.”
Dr. Shukla-Bhatt holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda in India. She earned a master of divinity degree and a Ph.D. at Harvard University.