The South Asia Initiative is working with the College’s Office of International Programs to develop a new model for undergraduate study abroad in South Asia. The Mumbai office will offer a student orientation program and contacts with universities, research institutions and non-government organizations in the region.

“The offices of the President and Provost have been very supportive in providing initial-phase operational funding for the SAI,” writes SAI Assistant Director Rena Fonseca in an e-mail. She adds that they have also been supportive in “providing thoughtful perspective, space in the new building, and many other kinds of support, both tangible and intangible.”

Assistant Provost Buffington says Summers and Hyman also encouraged collaboration and support between HBS and SAI. Summers told HBS Dean Kim B. Clark to look at the new Mumbai Center as a “modular system,” according to Buffington. The modular model, Buffington says, recommends that schools or centers looking to expand abroad should seek partnerships with other sectors of Harvard in the area. When convenient, as in the case of the HBS and SAI centers in Mumbai, they should share office space and administrative support with other Harvard groups.

The Dominguez task force is open to adopting this “modular system” and more integrative approach in setting up these international centers, according to Buffington. While he acknowledges that HBS and SAI agreed last-minute to partner their offices in Mumbai, he says that future centers will have greater “modular” integration and will seek to unite Harvard’s presence abroad.

But HBS Senior Associate Dean Richard H.K. Vietor says that despite this aim to centralize research abroad, international centers will not lose their autonomy. Their primary purpose and responsibility will remain the same—to support business school faculty conducting international research.

—Staff writer Kevin J. Feeney can be reached at kjfeeney@fas.harvard.edu.