About the South Asia Institute

The South Asia Institute (SAI) coordinates activities at Columbia University that relate to study of the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal and Pakistan. The Institute organizes conferences, seminars, exhibits, films, lecture series and brown bag talks that bring together faculty and undergraduate and graduate students with diverse interests and backgrounds. SAI partners with departments, centers, and institutes at Columbia, and works with South Asia groups on campus and off, in order to reach new audiences and facilitate an exchange of knowledge. The Institute has ties with the United Nations, the diplomatic community, and international agencies; and is located within the largest South Asian community in North America.

Affiliated Institute faculty teach courses on South Asia in fourteen departments and six schools. SAI faculty come from a wide range of disciplines and, taken together in their research and teaching, cover virtually all the countries of the region -- and some adjacent areas, including Afghanistan, Tibet, Burma and Southeast Asia. Columbia offers three year department-based language programs (Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced levels) in Hindi, Persian, Sanskrit, Tamil, and Urdu. Two year language programs at Columbia’s Language Resource Center include Bengali, Kannada, Punjabi, and Telegu, with third year Advanced classes arranged as tutorials or directed study.

Students may pursue undergraduate and graduate study of South Asia in a number of departments, primarily Anthropology, Comparative Literature, History, Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures, Political Science, and Religion. Master’s students at the School of International and Public Affairs may pursue a Regional Concentration in Southern Asian Studies. South Asia Studies is an option in the Liberal Studies MA program. All graduate students of the university may take a defined set of courses to qualify for a Certificate in South Asia Studies.

The Columbia Libraries have one of the oldest and largest South Asia collections in the country, with some 500,000 volumes -- over 150,000 of them in South Asian Languages. Columbia hosts the digital library website, SARAI (South Asia Resource Access on the Internet) which serves as the official South Asia catalog for the WWW Virtual Library Association, the oldest extant web catalog and one of the most respected.

The US Department of Education has designated SAI as a National Resource Center (NRC), one of ten such South Asia centers in the country. SAI NRC outreach activities have included professional development courses for high school teachers, teacher training workshops, the collection and development of materials for use in schools and colleges, and briefings for the media on current events. As an NRC, SAI awards Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships for Summer Intensive Language Study, and for Academic Year study in degree programs in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, the School of International and Public Affairs, and Teacher' College.

Contact Information
Officers of the Institute

Director:
Janaki Bakhle

Assistant Director and Outreach Coordinator:
William Carrick

Administrative Assistant:
Annapurna Potluri

Program Assistant:
Tanjila Islam

Web Site Administrator:
John Flaig

Information and Application for Admission
The Institute welcomes inquiries and visits from prospective students and South Asia scholars. Please write or call: Bill Carrick, Assistant Director, South Asia Institute, Columbia University, 606 West 122nd Street, 11th floor, Mail Code 9634, New York, NY 10027; or e-mail: wac2112@columbia.edu

For an application for admission to the Master of International Affairs program, and for information regarding financial aid, consult the SIPA bulletin or write:

School of International and Public Affairs Office of Admissions Columbia University 420 West 118th Street, Room 408 Mail Code 3325 New York, New York 10027

For information about other MA and Ph.D programs consult the Bulletin of the School of Arts and Sciences and the homepages of the particular departments, or write:

Graduate School of Arts and Science
107 Low Memorial Library
Columbia University
New York, NY 10027

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships
The South Asia Institute is designated by the U.S. Department of Education as a National Resource Center and is authorized to award Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships. FLAS awards can be for Academic Year study in a graduate degree program at Columbia, or for intensive Summer language study in the U.S. or abroad. SAI is authorized to award FLAS for the study of Bengali, Hindi, Persian, Punjabi, Tamil and Urdu. Other modern South Asia languages can be studied pending the approval of the Department of Education. Academic Year awards consist of full-time tuition and a stipend of $15,000. Summer awards cover tuition up to $4,000 and provide a stipend of $2,500. The annual FLAS competition at Columbia is open to incoming and current students in GSAS and Teacher's College for Academic Year study. SIPA applicants to Academic Year FLAS must be second year students. The competition for Summer FLAS is open to all graduate students enrolled in any Columbia degree program. You must be a U.S. citizen or permanent resident in order to apply. For information and general guidelines, please view our announcement guidelines. The Summer 2010 and Academic Year 2010-2011 deadline is March 5, 2010. Applications are available on-line, for SIPA students here and for GSAS and Teacher's College Students at here. Summer applicants from other schools should use the GSAS application form.