Dr. Raghbir S. Basi is an
educationist-nurturing people and a
former Provost of Alaska Pacific
University in Anchorage , Alaska. His
areas of special interest are economic
development, international trade and
finance, and organizational
administration. He taught at New York
University and at Kent State University
from 1960 to 1978. He also held various
administrative positions including
Founder/Director of the Center for
Peaceful Change and President of
the World Affairs Council. He
also served in 1963 as consultant to the
Planning Commission of India and from
1967 to 1970, on behalf of the Ford
Foundation, as senior economic advisor
to the government of Saudi Arabia . In
1978, he joined Alaska Pacific
University as Executive Dean and later
became Provost. While there, he also
served as President of the Board of
Chugach Electric Corporation (a billion
dollar utility in Anchorage ). He was
also closely associated with Global
Infrastructure fund (GIF), Tokyo , Japan
.
Dr. Basi was educated at Punjab
University (F.A) in India , the
University of British Columbia (B.A –
Honours; B.S.W) in Canada , at Harvard
University (M.P.A), and Cornell
University (Ph.D) in the United States .
His latest book is called Contextual
Management: a Global
Perspective, published by the
Haworth Press, New York , in 1998. He
has also translated Prof. Mohan Singh (Mahir)'s
Punjabi poetry into English, Ambient
Leaves publishes by Five Rivers
Publishers, Washington DC in 2005
While a student in the 1940's at Sikh
National College Lahore, and later at
SGGS Khalsa College of Mahalpur, he was
the Secretary of the Student National
Congress. At UBC in 1952, he was the
first Indian to become president of his
Alma Mater society (Student Union) and
in 1953 he was the first foreign student
to be elected President of the National
Federation of Canadian University
Students (NCFUS). Dr. Basi is also the
first Indian to have been appointed
Provost of an American University
(Alaska Pacific) where he held the Glenn
and Eva Olds chair until his retirement
in 1999. He took early retirement to
begin practicing what he had learned and
preached over the prior 36 years –
namely to spearhead the Village Live
Improvement Program.
