Faculty members from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business are sending nearly 2 tons of books to a university in Myanmar.
In a three-year Global Development Alliance, the Kelley School has partnered with the management studies department at Yangon University of Economics to provide nearly 2,000 books to the university. The partnership's goal is to increase the school's capabilities and share teaching methodologies.
A total of 1,912 books are being donated. The donation includes a set of used textbooks, research books and other topical materials from the personal libraries of various Kelley School faculty members.
Jonathan Crum, a program manager at the Kelley School's Institute for International Business, says the partnership is an effort to share a high-quality, Western education with up-and-coming business leaders in Myanmar.
"I think that this type of activity is not only very useful to a country which is in the process of opening and re-establishing itself in the world and in Southeast Asia, in this case, but also represents some of the outreach which is ingrained into the fabric of Indiana University and Indiana as a whole," Crum says.
The estimated shelf value of the books exceeds $200,000. They won't be sent until Myanmar's ministry of education issues an import license, which allows the books to be brought in free of cost.
Crum expects that license to be issued sometime in the next two weeks.
A grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development funds the schools' partnership, along with help from Hewlett-Packard and other groups.