Sanjay Varshney, dean of the College of Business Administration at California State University, Sacramento

Jamshedpur, Nov. 23: Where there is a will there is way. Sanjay Varshney (40), who has achieved the distinction of becoming the dean (College of Business Administration) at the California State University, Sacramento, has proved this right.

A resident of Nildih in Telco, Varshney was a student of Loyola School, who moved to the US after completing his graduation from Mumbai. He won a scholarship to do his masters in economics from the University of Cincinnati but soon found himself working as a computer laboratory assistant to make ends meet. “I only had $20 when I came to the US. I was alone here and did not wish to take financial help from my parents. Thus, I began working and gradually developed contacts,” he said.

Varshney recalled that as telephone calls were expensive, letters were the only mode of communication. “I could not go back to India and thus began looking for jobs,” he reminisced. Later, Varshney completed his doctorate in finance from the Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He also holds the membership of Chartered Financial Analyst.

The job of a dean in the US is quite different from deans at Indian universities. “Our role is not confined to classrooms. We need to develop good business relations as here education is considered an industry,” he said.

Prior to this, he also served as the dean of the School of Management at the State University of New York Institute of Technology from 1999 to 2003.

Recently, he visited India with American senior executives to talk on a business deal. “India has a lot of potential but to emerge as one of the best, it has to compete aggressively at the global level,” he said.

Varshney has a suggestion for Indian universities. “The curriculum should lead to an overall personality development. Focus should be on practical education,” he said.