University in India Signs Academic Cooperation Agreement with CLU

CHENNAI, INDIA – October 2004 –– Lutheran University of India signed an agreement with California Lutheran University on Oct. 11. The agreement, which is the culmination of months of meetings between the two internationally focused universities, provides for academic cooperation, faculty and curriculum development, and student exchange programs.

Lutheran University, established in 2003 and chartered by the University Grants Commission of India, is India’s first national Lutheran university. Headquartered in Baikunthapur with a major office in Chennai, Lutheran University of India so far has set up 10 learning centers in four states offering degrees in management and allied health. The Lutheran Church has operated schools, colleges, and hospitals throughout India for over a century.

California Lutheran University, founded in 1959, offers undergraduate and graduate programs to more than 3,000 students through its College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business and School of Education. Located in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on the edge of the Pacific Rim midway between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, the university in recent years has broadened its international outreach and exchange programs throughout the world.

Luther S. Luedtke, Ph.D., President of California Lutheran University and a former Director of the Indo–American Center for International Studies in Hyderabad, India, signed the agreement along with Dr. K.M. Shyamprasad, Chancellor of Lutheran University of India. Somnath Basu, Ph.D., a professor in the CLU School of Business and a native of Calcutta, also participated in the ceremony at Taj Coromandel Hotel.

According to Dr. Shyamprasad, the agreement will enable state–of–the–art educational curricula and technology to be made available to Indian students as they complete the final two years of their undergraduate programs in business management, information technology, and bioengineering and healthcare. It also paves the way for setting up a Study Abroad program that will provide opportunities for American students to study in India.

“We look forward,” Dr. Luedtke said, “to opening our extensive resources in science, technology, health care, media, business, and culture studies to Lutheran University of India and the vast educational audience it will serve. The partnership will be of equal importance to our own domestic students as they acquire the international sophistication needed to live, serve, and work in the 21st century.”

As California Lutheran University pursues its mission to educate leaders for a global society, university leaders have also recently agreed to work with Tumaini University in Iringa, Tanzania to set up a Study Abroad program which will debut in 2005. The University is already involved in exchanges with schools in Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Hong Kong, Japan and other European and Asian nations.