IU and Thailand: A 70-year partnership

Indiana University's long and storied history of international engagement dates back more than a century and spans the globe. But few countries hold quite the connection that Thailand does.

For 70 years, IU has enjoyed a rich history of partnership with Thailand, one of the university's longest official relationships with a global partner. As the university rapidly approaches its bicentennial celebration, IU's many educational and institution-building initiatives in Thailand -- and its activities across much of Southeast Asia -- continue to translate into numerous student and scholarly exchanges, international service opportunities, faculty research collaborations and genuine friendships that have transformed lives both in Thailand and in the Hoosier state.

Today, nearly 60 students from Thailand are enrolled at IU. As with all of IU's international students, they bring valuable cultural perspectives to the university's classrooms and enrich their local communities. IU also has welcomed many Thai faculty scholars and researchers to its Indiana campuses over the years.

A lasting friendship

In 1948, IU's legendary 11th president, Herman B Wells, met with Mom Luang Pin Malakul, then permanent undersecretary for education in Thailand, who was in Bloomington to visit with Thai graduate students studying at IU. This began a personal friendship between Wells and Malakul, who later served as Thai minister of education and culture, that would ultimately lead to a close institutional relationship between the Thai government and IU and contribute to the development of the country's system of higher education.

Future IU presidents Joseph Sutton and John Ryan visited Thailand as faculty members often in the 1950s, at a time when King Bhumibol sought better tools and data to inform important policy decisions. Between 1955 and 1962, more than 45 IU faculty traveled to Thailand and 41 Thai students came to the U.S. for advanced training in public administration -- 35 of those 41 students pursued their training at IU.

As one of the founding members of the Midwest Universities Consortium for International Activities, IU helped develop the Institute of Public Administration at Thammasat University in 1955. IU also played a central role, in 1966, in establishing the National Institute of Development Administration.

Thailand's leading educational institution in the area of sustainable development, NIDA has trained thousands of the Thai government's top officials and diplomats for service across the country and around the globe. IU's close partnership with NIDA continues today through exchanges of faculty and graduate students.

In 2016, IU President Michael A. McRobbie delivered a keynote address in front of hundreds of Thailand's most eminent statesmen, educational leaders and other dignitaries at NIDA's 50th anniversary celebration. He was the only U.S. college or university president asked to deliver a keynote.

During the 1960s and 1970s, IU helped develop 16 teacher colleges in Thailand, many of which are now four-year, comprehensive universities. Several years later, in the 1990s, IU partnered with Thailand's dental schools to promote the development of graduate dental education in Thailand. In addition to dentistry, IU continues to be engaged in active academic collaborations in the areas of business, education, law, optometry and public affairs.

Over the years, IU's partnership in Thailand has yielded an entire generation of senior-level Thai business executives, educators, government officials and diplomats who received their advanced education at IU. At one time in the 1980s, three-fifths of the governors of Thailand's 72 provinces held degrees from either IU or the Institute of Public Administration at Thammasat University. By 1986, the Institute of Public Administration and its successor, NIDA, had educated 3,300 master's graduates and trained 1,500 of the Thai government's top executives, including the prime minister, and more than a thousand of its diplomats.