In his semesterly interview with campus media last week, President John DeGioia discussed the growth of Georgetown’s connections in India and his optimistic vision for the future of the University’s initiatives there.

In 2009, Kapil Sibal, the Indian Minister of Human Resources and Development, visited Georgetown, participating in a two-hour workshop and delivering a speech. During the same trip he also visited other elite American universities, including Yale.

According to DeGioia, ties with foreign universities are essential for India’s further economic growth:

Part of the challenge for India is they simply don’t have enough higher education infrastructure. If you look at some of their recent reports, they may need as many as 600 new universities to meet the demand now to be able to accomplish what the Chinese have done in the last generation in this next generation in India which is essentially to double the level of college attendance. They have a very strong need for infrastructure, and they’re trying to encourage institutions who have a history of delivering higher education to consider coming in and doing some of that, helping the Indian government move forward in building that infrastructure.

In November 2010, DeGioia delivered the keynote address at a higher education summit held in Delhi by the Indian Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry. That visit led to two of the defining aspects of the University’s expanding initiatives in India. At the summit, DeGioia first learned of high-level plans for a US-India Higher Education Summit. After lengthy talks with the State Department, Georgetown hosted that summit in October. Sibal and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened the summit with speeches in Gaston Hall.

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Yesterday morning, while most Hoyas were still warm in their beds, others were lining up outside Gaston Hall at the crack of dawn, hoping to get a seat for a speech by one of the nation’s biggest political figures. The speech they were waiting for was by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who spoke at 8:30 a.m. for the opening address of the U.S.-India Higher Education Summit.

“Democracy depends on education,” Clinton said of the importance of the summit, which marks the first time that the world’s two largest democracies have come together to discuss what she believes to be the crux of their political systems.

Also present for the summt were Minister of Human Resource Development in India Kapil Sibal, Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake, University President Jack DeGoia, and 300 presidents, chancellors, and other important educational figures from the U.S. and India. Because of all the high-profile guests, only about a hundred of the students who lined up were allowed seats, and those lucky hundred were relegated to the balconies of Gaston.

Clinton began her remarks by welcoming the students in attendance. She took the chance to make a plug for careers in the Foreign Service—considering the sleep that most sacrificed to be there, her message probably did not fall on deaf ears.

She then outlined the United States’s commitment to collaborate on issues of higher education with India.

“Investing in education is in our common interest,” she said.

She continued by saying that education is a “passport to understanding,” along with building international relationships and the importance of “looking outward” in the world that we now inhabit.

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A politician is coming to Georgetown! And no, this time it isn’t one of those drop-ins from the Vice President that we’ve gotten so accustomed to. Instead, as the opening speaker for the U.S./India Higher Education Summit, which takes place at Georgetown on Thursday, October 13, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be speaking in Gaston.

The purpose of the summit, according to its website, is to “provide a platform for government and education leaders from both countries” to discuss their ideas about education and plans for its betterment with a “broad cross-section” of audience members, including academics, administrators, and NGO executives. Other notable speakers Indian Minister of Human Resources Kapil Sibal, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, and Indian Ambassador to the United States Nirupama Rao, who spoke on campus in September. Ribal will be joining Clinton in making the Summit’s opening remarks.

Rao isn’t the only one of the summit’s speakers who is familiar to the Hilltop. Clinton two years ago to discuss Obama’s human rights agenda, and Duncan was here in May 2010 to discuss the role of parents in education.

After Clinton and Ribal’s opening ceremonies, the summit will continue throughout the day, with events including a roundtable and plenary session in Gaston Hall, and a speaker’s luncheon on Healy Lawn. Duncan will make the closing remarks, again joined by Ribal, in Gaston at 5:00 p.m.

For those who can’t make it out of bed and to Healy at the appropriate time—which we’re sure is going to be very, very early—the summit’s events will be broadcast online from Georgetown’s webcast site.