Virginia Tech is spreading its branches worldwide, with two collaborative doctoral programs that are the first of their kind on campus.
The department of engineering science and mechanics has recently established a collaborative program with the Politencnico di Milano in Milan, Italy, and is in the process of finalizing an agreement with Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India.
Ishwar Puri, professor and department head of ESM, hopes to implement a global strategy with both collaborative programs.
"The vision is that we perceive ESM as a center of scholarly activity in the area of engineering mechanics," Puri said.
The collaborative programs offer participating students a Virginia Tech doctoral degree in engineering mechanics. Aspects of this program include studies into nanotechnology, material science, fluid mechanics and other related research being conducted at Tech and partner universities.
Muhammad Hajj, ESM professor and director of graduate studies, said ESM can also form partnerships outside of engineering and into math and sciences.
The program in Italy is more established, since having started in fall of 2007.
Professors at the participating universities recognize students who are high achievers and recommend them for participating in the collaboration.
Like other international students, students participating in the program have to fully apply to Tech, including taking the GRE and the TOEFL, an English aptitude test.
Currently, students participating in this program can do most of their coursework and training in Milan, and then come to Tech where they undergo many of the qualifying assessments toward the completion of a doctoral degree. This entails qualifying examinations, preliminary examinations, the thesis proposal and finally, the thesis defense.
Puri said not all universities have the same degree of assessment for doctoral students, so part of the benefit for universities to engage in the collaborative effort is to learn about these assessments.
Students would also have the option of submitting original thesis work to their home universities and undergoing the assessment process there for another doctoral degree.
One of the major aspects of the collaborations is to promote diversity of thought and of the student population by providing an international experience.
Currently, there are three students from Italy participating in the collaborative doctoral program.
The first student to participate in the collaboration with Jadavpur University has been identified, and is set to be a student this fall.
The collaborative program will also be open to domestic students.
"The number of domestic students enrolling in engineering is dwindling," Puri said. "We hope with an innovative program to attract students who are interested in global issues with a technical perspective."
Tech students in ESM wanting to participate in the program would be responsible for identifying a committee in the partner university that has a similar research interest.
In addition to the partnerships with Politecnico di Milano and Jadavpur University, ESM is currently working to design collaborative programs with the University of Rome La Sapienza and Tianjin University in China. "It would be nice to eventually have a program on every continent," Puri said.
ESM currently has a collaborative program with Tunisia Polytechnic School in La Marsa, Tunisia, offering a master's degree in computational mechanics. The program was established with funds from the U.S. State Department.
Partner universities are chosen because of the "synchronous culture" with ESM and past relationships ESM has had with those universities. These can be long-standing faculty relations, former students or postdoctoral students who have come to the department.
Another aspect is the level of service and outreach at the respective universities, and the ability of ESM to partner with universities that are seeking to improve their graduate education programs.
"We insist on visiting the departments and having them come visit us here," Hajj said. "It is very labor intensive."
According to Jadavpur University officials, the new program is the first collaboration of its type between an Indian university and a university in the United States.
ESM is currently the only department on campus that has a collaborative doctoral program with another university.
"ESM has a culture of innovation in education and outreach. This program falls into our culture of innovation," Puri said.
Tech also offers graduate courses through partner universities in Egypt and India, but they do not involve students coming to the Tech campus during their studies.
Tech's Middle East and North Africa Graduate Program offers master's and doctoral programs in electrical engineering, computer engineering and computer science through the Arab Academy for Science and Technology in Cairo.
A collaborative Master's of Information Technology is offered through SP Jain Institute of Management Research in Mumbai, India.
In addition to these programs are numerous on-going projects at the Office of International Research, Education and Development, particularly donor-funded collaborative research projects. Within OIRED, is the office of Education Abroad, which sends more than 900 students abroad for studies annually.