Stony Brook University Receives $100,000 Gift From Dr. Krishna Gujavarty for India Studies
Gift Doubled by Simons Foundation Challenge Grant for Total Impact of $200,000
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| Krishna Gujavarty |
STONY BROOK, NY, December 6, 2012 – Dr. Krishna R.S. Gujavarty, Chairman of Psychiatry at Good Samaritan Hospital and Medical Center, donated $100,000 to establish the “Dr. Gujavarty Family Seminar Fund in India Studies” in the Center for India Studies at Stony Brook University. The Fund will underwrite an annual seminar hosted by the Center on developing Asian Indian leaders. The gift will be matched dollar for dollar by the Simons Foundation Challenge Grant for a total impact of $200,000.
The endowed Dr. Gujavarty Family Seminar, designed for undergraduate students, seeks to foster values-based leadership from inside and outside the Asian Indian community and to develop a sense of shared purpose. It will attract nationally prominent leaders from the Asian Indian community to share their vision, values, strategies, insights and experience in defining leadership in business, not-for-profits, media, politics, education, and ethics.
“Leadership is not doing what is quick, convenient or right for the moment,” explained Dr. Gujavarty, “It’s doing the morally right thing, the right way, at all times. Through this endowed seminar, we want to help students learn right from wrong, and have the courage to stand by their conviction, and the discipline to apply themselves. Then they can make their own destiny.”
“Dr. Gujavarty has been a great friend of the Center for India Studies,” said S. N. Sridhar, SUNY Distinguished Service Professor and Director for the Center for India Studies, “and he has actively served on its Executive Board since its inception in 1997. This generous and visionary gift is a wonderful demonstration of his commitment. It will enable the Center to expose students to the finest role models of Asian Indian leadership and instill the highest standards and values.”
“This gift is a gratifying endorsement of Stony Brook’s outstanding India Studies program from a notable leader in the Asian Indian community,” said Dexter A. Bailey, Jr., Vice President for University Advancement. “This type of philanthropic leadership will inspire others to come forward to invest in the important work of the Center.”
Dr. Gujavarty’s gift will be credited toward the Center for India Studies’ fundraising campaign to create a $2.5 million in endowment capital to strengthen its position as the preeminent academic center for Indian thought, history, linguistics, culture and religion in the United States.
Dr. Gujavarty is also Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Stony Brook University and at the New York Osteopathic College of Medicine in Westbury, and currently an active Board Member for the Office of Professional Medical Conduct and State Board of Medicine in New York. He is a resident of Long Island for 36 years and lives in Copiague Harbor with his wife Prabha.
About the Center for India Studies
The Center for India Studies’ mission is to promote a better appreciation of Indian thought, culture, civilization and contemporary issues by developing expertise and resources for studying India for the benefit of the University and the community. The Center regularly sponsors courses on India, faculty research, student scholarships, a reference library and publication program, conferences, lecture and performing arts series, and an extensive outreach program for schools, universities, public libraries, museums, media, and civic forums. The Center was a principal advisor to the hour-long PBS documentary “Asian Indians in America.” For details, visit www.stonybrook.edu/india.
Photo: Dr. Krishna Gujavarty
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© Stony Brook University 2012
