William C. Kirby, Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Spring 2024, Volume 153, Number 2.

Professor Kirby is the T. M. Chang Professor of China Studies at Harvard University and the Spangler Family Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He is a Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and serves as Chairman of the Harvard China Fund. He is former Dean of Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

…when we build, let us think that we build for ever.

                   — John Ruskin

At AUW, we are not a traditional university serving as a gatekeeper. Instead, we are an escalator providing the best education to the most disenfranchised. Our impulse is not solely humanitarian, though we are deeply committed to justice and equity. Our mission is to actively seek out and nurture talent in the most unexpected places, offering unparalleled educational opportunities.

Our commitment is rooted in the observation that species thriving at the edges of land and water are often the most resilient. Similarly, those humans who have been marginalized by society exhibit the same extraordinary resilience. AUW morphs and molds itself to be most responsive to the particular needs of communities it wishes to serve.

When we recognized the educational void for Rohingya women in refugee camps, who were often married with children by eighteen, we launched the flagship “General Studies Program.” This initiative allows adolescent girls to join AUW for ability and age-appropriate academic programs. In some cases, Rohingya students have been placed in elite local schools where they study side-by-side with Bangladeshi students — this integration marks a first for both communities. Once these girls complete their British A-levels, they are welcomed back into AUW’s undergraduate program. Our long-term approach ensures that our students receive a comprehensive education without shortcuts.

This year, with nearly $1 million sponsorship from UNICEF, our graduates from the Masters of Arts in Education program—featuring significant participation from Afghan students—alongside their Teaching Fellows have embarked on a two-year Upper Primary Teachers Training program in the Rohingya refugee camps. This initiative aims to train 1080 educators in the camps who will be deployed to support the primary education of Rohingya children. If there were a true case of virtuous circle, this must be it!

Closer to AUW’s home in Bangladesh, we work alongside local communities to nurture homegrown talent and foster inclusive leadership development from within. Our outreach includes families served by microfinance organizations that lend to rural women in small parcels of money.

We also value partnerships with local industry. As the second largest producer of garments globally, Bangladesh employs nearly four million women in these factories. On Fridays, when factories are closed, we go to the legions of local manufacturers and make a simple plea to the assembled workers: please take our admissions test because if you don’t, you will never know the potential futures awaiting you. In keeping with our commitment to tangible local impact, we secure agreements with the employers that ensures continued salaries for workers accepted into AUW for the entire duration of their studies. Success stories from former textile workers like Sadeka Begum, now a Business Coordinator at a financial services company, Lucky Akter, who returned to the garment industry but now working as a Merchandiser, and Monica Das, who has just obtained her MSc in Finance and Investment in the UK, exemplify the transformative impact of our programs.

We have also pledged to support the education of 600 Dalit women across the subcontinent, furthering our commitment to equity.

In Bangladesh, many tea estate workers are Dalits who migrated years ago, often speaking their own distinct languages. Behind the beautiful scenery, a different reality unfolds, where already pitiful minimum wages are further reduced because workers live on estate land. Generations of families continue to work on these estates, perpetuating the cycle.

AUW views the tea estates as the rural counterpart to urban textile factories. Despite unimaginable challenges, we have consistently recruited students from these estates. Shoma, who is not Brahmin, is one such student. Recently, she conducted the Saraswati Puja on campus with great aplomb and confidence. Breaking one barrier often leads to the dismantling of many others.

Our graduates have been awarded numerous prestigious scholarships, including the Chevening Scholarship, Commonwealth Shared Scholarship, DAAD Helmut-Schmidt Scholarship, Dalai Lama Fellowship, Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, Fulbright Scholarships and the Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarship among others. In their professional careers, AUW graduates have assumed significant roles across various fields, including healthcare, climate change and sustainability, education, research and development, and humanitarian response. Notably, over 40 AUW graduates are working with United Nations agencies around the world, 54 are on the front line of the Rohingya refugee crisis working in NGOs in Cox’s Bazar, and over 60 graduates have joined the civil service in their respective countries. Among them, Savitri Kumari from India, AUW class of 2015, ranked first in the Jharkhand Civil Service exams and now serves as a Deputy Collector. Shikrity Pramanik, class of 2014, is a Senior Assistant Commissioner and Executive Magistrate in the Bangladesh Civil Service. Priya Nagarajah, class of 2014, from Sri Lanka, holds the position of First Secretary at the Sri Lankan Embassy in Istanbul. Additionally, we have seen numerous Bhutanese alumni joining the Ministry of Health after graduation, further showcasing the remarkable achievements of our graduates.

“One of the principal goals of AUW is to instill confidence and a powerful sense of agency in these students, who came from societies that limited opportunities for women – sometimes severely… Their success is all the more amazing because some of the students came from societies where women are so controlled by men that they are not allowed out of their house unless accompanied by a male guardian. The lesson from their stories is the critical importance of their personal motivation in the pursuit of their own meaningful goals.”