ANU and Indiana University to offer joint Masters

The Australian National University (ANU) and Indiana University (IU) in the United States will offer a new dual-degree Masters program in Arts Administration and Museum and Heritage Studies from 2017 under a new deal to promote stronger links between the universities.

 

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt AC and IU President Michael A McRobbie AO signed off on the new dual Masters program in Bloomington during a high-level delegation from ANU to Indiana.

 

The new joint Masters program has been designed to provide students at the ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences (CASS), and students at the IU School of Public and Environmental Administration (SPEA), with opportunity to study within two distinct but related areas of cultural administration.

 

"Australian students will have the opportunity to augment their qualifications in museums and collections with a degree in arts administration, while students from Indiana will be able to add museum and heritage studies to their arts administration qualifications," Professor Schmidt said.

 

The dual Masters program will give students the opportunity to do internships in both the United States and Australia, with qualifications recognised by both Universities. Students will spend a year at each university.

 

The agreement was signed during Professor Schmidt's visit to Indiana and his talks with President McRobbie to promote stronger student and research cooperation with ANU.

 

"Since the early 1990s, Indiana University and the ANU have had a strong partnership, which each of us has worked to strengthen and broaden in recent years," said President McRobbie, who received his PhD in logic in 1979 from ANU, an honorary doctorate in 2010 and was ANU alumnus of the year in 2015.

 

"Together, we share a deep commitment to education of the highest quality," he said.

 

"Through initiatives like this, we demonstrate how providing such an education is one of the principal ways that we can deepen understanding and expand opportunities across hemispheres and improve the world for future generations."

 

The two universities already have strong ties, including regular student and academic exchanges.

 

The largest collaboration and one of IU's most active global partnership activities is the ANU-IU Pan Asia Institute, which is based in IU's School of Global and International Studies. Since 2010, the institute has brought together leading scholars and students from both institutions with mutual interests in Asia.

 

Other collaborations between IU and ANU include exchanges between ANU and IU's Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute and between the ANU National Security College and the IU Center for Applied Cybersecurity Research.

 

During the visit to Indiana, Professor Schmidt delivered a public lecture on his Nobel-Prize winning research into the accelerating Universe.

 

Details of the new dual Masters program are available on ANU CASS website.