Final Visit of the tour - Amrita University

The last leg of the India Odyssey and an amazing final visit. After a 45 min drive down roads shared with vibrantly painted trucks, cars, auto rickshaws, cyclists, ox carts, pedestrians, goats and dogs, we were kindly hosted for the day at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham University at their Coimbatore campus. The campus is in a beautiful setting with a stunning backdrop of mountains, some limestone and others granite. The buildings are new, elegant and have a Mediterranean feel.

 

 

We had a full day of informative discussions with senior academics and mamagers hosted by Mr P Manoj, Head of Indo-Us and International Initiatives, and Nimmy. Following another good lunch in the palatial Guest House, we had a tour of the campus including the Olympic-sized swimming pool, all bathed in scorching sunshine.

 

The University is only 6 years old and was founded by the humanitarian Sri Mata Amritanandamayi Devi known as Amma whose is the Chancellor of the University. There are now 15,000 students over five campuses; first undergraduate teaching was grown then postgraduate study and now research is being developed. As a private University it has a good deal of autonomy.

The ethos of the University is influenced by Amma and the principle of giving their students a value-based education including service to the wider social good is embedded. This embraces a spiritual, but not religious, dimension; all first year students take yoga classes and students are not allowed to smoke or drink alcohol and haver curfews!!

The figurehead of Amma is attracting staff members back to India from across the world in order to be part of this development. Amrita University has achieved so much in a few years; it will be fascinating to see how this continues to develop. Their aim is to be world leading institution.

This is the final day of an exciting, stimulating, sometimes tiring at other times exhilarating AUA study tour of India. We are now going on our separate ways although we will all meet up in Warwick at the AUA Conference where we will be presenting sessions on our findings.. Thank you for following our blog and in the words of Amma ‘May all beings be happy!’