SHREVEPORT – LSU Shreveport and a university in northwestern India have entered into an agreement of cooperation in which students can earn dual master’s degrees.
Students from the Institute of Infrastructure, Technology, Research and Management in Ahmedabad, India, will soon be able to apply for a program in which they’d earn a Master of Business Administration from their home university and a Master of Science in Computer Systems Technology with a concentration in business administration from LSUS.
Four classes from LSUS’s online MBA program will be included in IITRAM’s curriculum.
Indian students will come to Shreveport to complete the computer science master’s program in person, which offers academic and cultural exchanges on LSUS’s campus.
The dual degree program offers accelerated pathways in which the two degrees can be completed in two to three years.
Leaders from both universities participated in a virtual signing this past week, which builds upon an initial memorandum of understanding signed in December of 2023.
“We look forward to welcoming your students to our campus and into our joint program,” LSUS chancellor Robert Smith told the Indian delegation via Zoom. “This is an unusual agreement for lots of reasons, and it shows that we’re thinking outside of the box and thinking about the future.
“Students will have two different master’s degrees from two different universities in two different countries on two different continents.”
Students will be able to begin the program next fall and come to the LSUS campus starting in 2026.
The dual degree program reflects more than two years of curricular mapping in which faculty from both sides collaborated on the program design.
“Generally what happens in (memorandums of understanding) is that the agreement is only on paper and isn’t actually implemented, but everybody involved has worked incredibly hard to design this joint degree program,” said M.K. Barua, director general of IITRAM. “We’re also looking forward to collaborating on joint research and joint projects as well as finding other opportunities to work with each other.”
Indian students completing the dual degree program will be eligible for up to three years of post completion work experience in the United States.
Potential expansion of the current agreement could include LSUS students and faculty studying and teaching in India as well.
Ahmedabad is India’s fifth-most populous city with nearly 5.6 million people, which would rank only behind New York City in the U.S.
LSUS provost Helen Taylor said students from both universities will benefit from exposure to different ideas.
“Our students here in Shreveport are often place bound, so it’s valuable for them to interact with faculty and students from other parts of the world,” Taylor said. “That’s an education beyond the classroom as they are exposed to different cultural and global perspectives, and we thank you for helping students access that opportunity.”
International academic exposure is important for students of any country.
“The opportunity to study abroad and gain knowledge at a U.S. university is extremely valuable, and this is a great opportunity to learn principles of business and computer science,” said Axaykumar Mehta, dean of academics at IITRAM. “This is a great opportunity for both universities to have this kind of collaboration.”
LSUS’s collaboration with IITRAM stemmed from multiple visits to Indian campuses since 2022 from Subhajit Chakrabarty, director of LSUS’s Master of Science in Computer Systems Technology, and Sanjay Menon, dean of graduate studies and director of India Studies.
The LSUS pair encountered IITRAM economics professor Pravin Jadhav, which sparked the relationship between the two universities.
While the dual degree program with IITRAM is the first with an Indian partner, LSUS does have memorandums of understanding with six Indian institutions and one in Bangladesh as a result of relationships forged by Chakrabarty and Menon. Those relationships started with Zoom meetings in 2020 with various Indian universities.
A total of five students from those institutions enrolled in LSUS’s computer systems technology master’s program this fall with the aim of attracting more students to Shreveport in the coming years to meet American demand for computer science professionals.
