The University of Michigan (U-M) is following a national trend of improving US-India relations through higher education by steadily increasing its partnerships with Indian universities, the number of Indian students and faculty on its campus, and the amount of U-M students traveling to India for educational opportunities. 

“We have been partnering with Madras Christian College (MCC) since 2016,” says Dr. Katie Lopez, director of the Office of Global Activities at the U-M School of Social Work. "We have found it so valuable that we’ve renewed the five-year partnership program twice.

“We have an exchange of faculty and students, research and teaching collaborations, and a program with students going back and forth. We offer a global course, an intensive introduction to how social work is done in India, key issues confronting vulnerable populations, and how the issues in India compare with those in the United States.” 

The partnership is proving valuable to students from both universities. 

“We really enjoy working with the University of Michigan,” says Dr. B. Prince Solomon Devadass, associate professor and fieldwork coordinator for the Department of Social Work at MCC. “Both schools are passionate about and share a social work value system, professionalism, and global engagement. That is our connection and why the partnership is so successful.”

This past August, eleven Master of Social Work (MSW) students participated in an inaugural international faculty-led course, or Global Course Extension (GCE), in Chennai, India. 

Students in the GCE completed two courses focused on the Grand Challenges for Social Work. More specifically, the courses focused on four grand challenges, including eliminating racism and caste, closing the health gap, creating social responses to environmental challenges, and building healthy relationships to end violence with a focus on women. The first one-credit introductory course took place in the U.S., and the second 2-credit experiential course took place in Chennai. Both courses were taught by Dr. Ashley Cureton (Bhavalkar), and they were locally grounded and explicitly comparative. The GCE experience provided students with an intensive introduction to how the social work profession is organized in India, key issues confronting vulnerable populations, and how the issues in India and the United States align and depart from each other.

Once in Chennai, the GCE cohort attended Tamil language courses and lectures given by local experts in the mornings and visited field sites in the afternoons to complement course content. The lectures and field visits allowed the cohort to learn about social work practices employed in the Indian context, particularly in local communities, agencies, and organizations with which the MCC Department of Social Work (Aided) works closely. 

"Our days were long and extremely impactful," says Kelz Cousins, an online, part-time U-M MSW interpersonal track student. 

"Many mornings, we did Tamil language lessons to learn some basic words and phrases to interact with local folx. Then, we would have lectures from amazing people doing wonderful work in India about themes in the Social Work Grand Challenges. Many of the lecturers were professors in India or worked at nonprofits. 

"In the afternoon, we would travel into the community. Sometimes, traveling by bus with the group would take many hours. The school had wonderful partnerships with Irula communities. They partner with them to help them achieve their goals. This community is one of the greenest, sustainable places I’ve ever seen, and so much more."

Additionally, some of the impactful site visits include visiting Rehoboth, a home for mentally disabled women; traveling to the Irula Tribal Women’s Welfare Society, which is a community-based organization that works to protect natural resources using the Irula tribal knowledge and empower Irula women; and touring an award-winning village known for water conservation projects. 

"My favorite part of the course was the farewell dinner on our final night. It was also a meaningful moment to reflect on our shared experiences as a cohort and to celebrate the strong partnership between the two institutions," says Shreeja Vachhani, U-M MSW student, with a focus on interpersonal practice in integrated health, mental health, and substance abuse.

"I highly recommend this course and the global social work experience to other MSW students. While I may be a bit biased since India is my home country, this experience deepened my connection to the field of mental health and how I envision contributing to it there. This program is truly one of a kind, offering the opportunity to explore a different culture and region of the world while gaining valuable and meaningful learning experiences."