SURENDRA KUMAR KAUSHIK

Dr. Surendra K. Kaushik was born in Malsisar, India, on June 21, 1944 to Vaidya Laxminarain and Ratni Chaturvedy Kaushik. After graduating from V.R. High School in Malsisar in 1961 he studied at Poddar College, Nawalgarh, affiliated with the University of Rajasthan, earning a Bachelor of Commerce in 1965, and the economics department at the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur leading to a Master of Arts in 1967. He received a Certificate in Research Methodology at the Institute of Economic Growth, affiliated with Delhi University, in 1968 and then registered as a Ph.D. candidate at the Delhi School of Economics in 1969 when he got an opportunity to go to the United States as a graduate student in 1970 where he received a Ph.D. in economics from Boston University in 1976. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1980.

Before joining Pace University in New York and Westchester in 1981Professor Kaushik taught in Boston area at Boston University, Northeastern University, Lowell Technological Institute (now University of Massachusetts, Lowell, Boston State College (now part of the University of Massachusetts, Boston), and Babson College in Wellesley.

Dr. Kaushik married Helena Pokornicki on Sept. 12, 1973. Helena was born and grew up in Detroit and moved to Boston during her college years. Helena worked as an R.N. at the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston and later as Director of Babson College Health Center, which she renamed from Infirmary immediately on joining it in 1976. They moved to Westchester, New York in 1981 when he joined Pace University’s business school, and Mrs. Helena Kaushik worked at Phelps Memorial Hospital before moving to the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx as a Patient Care Coordinator from 1986 to January1991.

Dr. Kaushik established Mrs. Helena Kaushik Women’s College in 1999 (named after Helena who suffered a severe disabling stroke in January 1991) in his native village Malsisar, District Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, where there was no college in a 35-kilometer radius, let alone a women’s college. MHKWC is a non-profit, non-government-aided, day as well as resident college. It is a fully accredited college in the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur system. It does not charge tuition because of generally low incomes of area residents. It is financed from American private donations from individuals and foundations that believe in the power of education and give back to society, beyond their own families and relatives, to make it better.

The college has grown rapidly on a 30-acre new campus. It has already graduated seven classes ( a total of 455 graduates) with a B.A., B. Sc and B. Sc in Biotechnology, M.A., M.Sc., M.Sc. in biotechnology and B.Ed. It has completed nine academic years in May 2008. It offers a wide variety of arts and social sciences courses in its Bachelor and Master of Arts, and three tracks of Bachelor of Science, Bachelor of Science in Microbiology, and Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology, B.Ed., B.Com., BBA, and BCA degrees of the universities of Rajasthan.

The student body has increased from 23 in 1999-2000 to nearly 400 in 2008-09. Students at the college come from more than 65 villages and hamlets, as well as neighboring Haryana and U.P., where no institution of higher education existed before. They represent all religions in the area, all castes as recognized by the reservation system and all socio-economic groups in a 70 kilometer radius. It provides educational opportunities to all those who qualify for admission to its programs. Its 455 graduates (as of 2008 ) are pursuing further higher education and officer level jobs in business, education and government as well as entrepreneurial activities. Thus, the newly created human capital is transforming society positively by creating jobs, industry and educated women in rural India .

The College has built about 100,000 sq. ft of RCC construction modern space for classrooms, a library, an art gallery, geography, home science, music, psychology, chemistry, biology-zoology, botany, and physics laboratories for teaching and potential research, a 30-bed guesthouse and a 100-bed residence hall. The residance hall would be soon expanded to accomodate 300 students and faculty by 2009-10.

The college has received national recognition when as a founder Dr. Kaushik was awarded the Aruna Asaf Ali Sadhbhavana (Goodwill) Award of the Minorities League of India presented by the Honorable Dr. C.P. Thakur, India’s Minister of Health, and Hind Rattan Award of the NRI Society of India presented to him by the Honorable Shri H. Dave Gowda, the former Prime Minister of India and the Honorable Shri Arjun Singh, currently Minister for Human Resources in the government headed by Dr. Manmohan Singh since May 2004. The Delhi Telugu Academy awarded Dr. Kaushik with its Shiromani Rashtriya Vikas Award in Hyderabad in its annual function on 4 September 2005. The Brahmin Samaj Vikas Samiti, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan honored Dr. Kaushik with its Parashuram Samman on 17 August 2006.

Additional information about the College is available at www.helenakaushik.org His complete biography is available at http://webpage.pace.edu/skaushik/homepage.htm His E-mail is: skaushik@pace.edu and phone is: (914) 762-6168