Balasubramaniam

The 2015-16 Speaker Series, The Local and the Global: Dialogues on Community Engagement, will begin with Balu Balasubramaniam, M.D., who will present the first talk, “What constitutes quality community partnerships?” Friday, Sept. 11, at noon in 225 ILR Conference Center.

Balasubramaniam’s talk will explore the recent growth in community-engaged learning programs in higher education and the importance of introducing a framework and a set of criteria to create a quality campus-community partnership.

Balasubramaniam is a development activist, leadership trainer and public policy advocate. A physician by training, he is the founder of the Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement (SWYM), one of India’s leading developmental organizations. SVYM has partnerships with the ILR School’s Global Service Learning Program and the College of Human Ecology’s Global Health Program. Balasubramaniam is also founder and chair of Grassroots Research and Advocacy Movement. He was a Frank H.T. Rhodes Class of ’56 Professor at Cornell, and he teaches leadership courses and runs leadership workshops in India and the U.S.

The Speaker Series, a collaboration between the Public Service Center and Engaged Learning + Research, was founded to advance the Cornell community’s knowledge, skills and understanding of community engaged learning and research. Balasubramaniam’s talk is co-sponsored by Cornell Abroad, Global Health Program, ILR International Program, Maria Einaudi Center for International Studies, the Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives and the Program in International Nutrition.