Last summer, Madhav Rajan, dean of the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, was also appointed to a new role as UChicago’s chief global strategist—representing the University as a whole.
We recently sat down with Rajan to discuss his vision for global engagement at UChicago. At the top of his agenda is to better connect UChicago’s overseas campuses into a true network that can extend UChicago’s distinctive education and research to the world. Inspired by his experience leading Booth as well as his own experience as an international student, Rajan emphasizes the need for UChicago to be flexible when operating globally, and to adjust and pivot as needed.
Although strategies may change depending on global circumstances, the University’s engagement with the world is at the core of its identity, Rajan said. He added that the University wants to meet the highest standard of excellence in everything it does around the world. “You want to do things that are going to have a global impact for a long time to come.”
Can you explain your role as chief global strategist and what drew you to it?
The fact that the role was set up really speaks to the University's commitment to being a global institution. We have very broad and very deep engagement with the world. This role is intended to find a way to look at synergies across these types of engagements, to provide opportunities for global engagement and to leverage our overseas resources more. From my standpoint as dean of Booth, which has always had a global presence, it seemed to be a natural way to take what I already knew and use that for this second role.
In our current moment, there are many challenges for American universities and their international work. Will the nature of UChicago’s global engagement change—and if so, how?
One of the great things about being in a place like UChicago, which has been around for 135-plus years, is that you can have a very long-term view. From that standpoint, the ethos underpinning our global engagement is completely unchanged. We want to be an institution that helps come up with ideas, plans and policies that will solve the world's toughest problems. We want to educate the people who will run organizations and corporations across the world. We want faculty who will have global impact. The only way to do that is by being international.
Booth has long been one of UChicago’s most globally active units. What lessons from there are you applying to this University-wide role?
Booth went abroad before anyone else did. Our first executive MBA was set up in Barcelona back in 1994. Then we set up a campus in Singapore in 2000. That changed over time. We moved from Barcelona to London, and from Singapore to Hong Kong. To me, one of the big lessons is the notion that you need to be flexible, particularly in the global realm. Being willing to adjust and pivot as needed is key. In London, we had a faculty committee evaluate our presence there. Their message to me was we should go big or go home. We decided to go big and we went to this new facility in London, which has been transformative not just for Booth, but for UChicago. We get more UChicago students in the College from England now than any other country.
The message from UChicago President Paul Alivisatos announcing your appointment emphasized aligning our global engagement “with priority areas across our research and education mission.” Can you discuss how engagement might differ depending on whether the activity is research or education?
Our research-promoting activities provide access to partnerships and new sources of funding, and the place where we see that most clearly is in Europe. We've partnered with the Berlin University Alliance to provide seed funding for new research collaborations. In France, it's a combination of both student and faculty interest.
We have joint programs where Ph.D. students can spend time in French institutions, then come to UChicago to get their Ph.D. Something I didn't know until I took this job is that CNRS (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) in France is UChicago's most frequent research collaborator in terms of number of co-publications. On the student side, Hong Kong is a great example, where international high school students first learn about UChicago through our summer academy. We obviously have UChicago students doing study abroad all over the world, including in China. We work in India with the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth. They have a summer fellows program in Ahmedabad with the university there, and the goal is to bring cohorts of like-minded students for a shared global experience.
Your role includes oversight of UChicago’s presence in Beijing, Delhi and Hong Kong, as well as Paris in collaboration with the College and London with Booth. What role do you expect them to play in advancing UChicago’s engagement globally?
The fact that we have these centers helps us maintain local ties, maintain research collaborations, and engage better with institutions and alumni there. If I look at Hong Kong as an example, for instance, the construction of the Hong Kong campus was largely funded by our alumni living locally. The fact that we were able to make that physical investment made them a lot more committed to being a part of that and giving back. I think it's also great for our faculty. One thing we've done at Booth, which I would love to see done more in other places, is we set up global faculty-in-residence programs where faculty will go spend three months or longer living in a particular location.
We have chosen to invest in regions that are going to be important for years to come. Having a presence is a first step. Over time, how do we modify that presence? How do we change it depending on the needs of our faculty or students? I think it's been a marvelous thing that we made these investments. There’s a lot of time and effort spent in managing these centers and campuses, but it's absolutely worth it for the University.
Looking ahead, what do you see as UChicago’s greatest opportunities internationally?
First, it’s figuring out a way to transform these overseas centers and campuses into a true network. Second, we're not insensitive to the University's financial situation. How we manage these facilities in a more financially sustainable manner is something that we take really seriously. And third, given the geopolitical situation, can we make these sites places where we can educate more students? We're using them as a way to support activities on behalf of all areas of the University, including figuring out, for example, how do we provide funding to people who want to do research in Africa? How do we want to provide resources to somebody who wants to do work in Vietnam or Indonesia, using the Hong Kong campus as a base?
Your undergraduate degree came from the University of Madras in India, followed by graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon University in the U.S. Does your experience as an international graduate student shape your role as UChicago’s Chief Global Strategist?
People of my generation know firsthand what this country does for foreign students. If you speak to them, you’ll find a deep appreciation for the institutions in this country. And for the openness that this country has always had to encourage the best talent to come. I bring the experience of coming in as a foreign student and navigating the U.S. educational system and then working as a faculty member. I appreciate the importance of having a global background and recognize that countries are different and unique in their own way.
