Four young Sri Lankan students arrived on the campus of Madras Christian College in August 2016, part of a fast-moving relationship between United Board network institutions in India and schools in the war-torn Jaffna region of northern Sri Lanka.
South Asia
Learn more about the educators and institutions in our network.
Elizabeth Abel, Lady Doak College
Helping Girls Become Women
Elizabeth Abel now lives nearly 9,000 miles away from Lady Doak College, yet still feels a deep sense of gratitude for the education she received at this Christian college for women. “It was a place for inspiration, where we were taught to think independently and globally,” she recalls.
Madras Christian College
Connecting Goals to Resources
President Alexander Jesudasan and his colleagues are embracing a big challenge: implementing the strategic plan that will guide MCC to its 200th anniversary in 2037.
Christ University
Building a Charismatic Institution
College and university leaders typically focus on objectives, talent and skills, and financial resources when they develop strategic plans. Father Thomas C. Mathew, vice chancellor of Christ University in India, encourages these leaders to add another element to the list: charisma.
Jenee Peter, Union Christian College
Interfaith Dialogue on a Daily Basis
Union Christian College, an interdenominational Christian college in Kerala, India, is fertile ground for interfaith dialogue. As Jenee Peter, a professor in the Department of History points out, “60 percent of the students are non-Christians and 50 percent of the faculty are from other faiths.” That means that “there is interfaith dialogue here on a daily basis and, through experience, we are learning how to relate to each other and how to understand the perspectives of others.”
Ridling Margaret Waller, Women’s Christian College
Empowering New Leaders
When Ridling Margaret Waller attended the United Board’s Asian University Leaders Program (AULP) in January 2007, she had been principal of Women’s Christian University (WCC) in Chennai, India, for only seven months. But she had begun to hone her leadership skills seven years earlier, as a United Board visiting scholar at Davidson College in the United States from 2000 to 2001.
Bernadine Joseph, Stella Maris College
Observing Leadership in Action
In 2003, soon after she completed her placement as a United Board Fellow at Valparaiso University in the United States, Bernadine Joseph wrote that “new life experiences that will direct my career and life paths have taken shape.” Today, more than a decade later, she is applying her United Board Fellow experiences and leadership lessons to her role as vice principal of Stella Maris College, a Catholic women’s college in Chennai, India.
Sister Pushpa Joseph, United Board Trustee
A Prophetic, Creative Theology
Dr. Pushpa Joseph is the Provincial Superior of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, Bangalore, India. She is a United Board Trustee and the co-chair of its South Asian Task Force. In this interview, she shares her thoughts on public theology.
Raja Vedamariasusai, University of Madras
An Open Sharing of Ideas
United Board Program Officer Kevin Henderson resided with the 16 IASACT scholars in the summer of 2015, enabling him to pursue both his staff assignments and his own research interests in service-learning in Southeast Asia. He reflects on his interaction with Raja Vedamariasusai and other IASACT scholars.
Lady Doak College
Preparing Hearts and Minds
Lady Doak Principal Mercy Pushpalatha wanted to integrate service-learning into every department of the college and, with the commitment of her faculty and a United Board grant, she has been able to introduce Life Frontier Engagement (LFE) into the curriculum for all third-year students. LFE officially began in June 2015.