UW President Mark Emmert, a man who rarely has more than a few free minutes in his schedule, left his busy campus life behind on Saturday for a nine-day trip to India.

The majority of his time will be spent as one of eight delegates of the U.S. Department of State. The group will visit Indian schools in an effort to expand the already-booming exchange of students and information between the United States and India.

“India is the leading country in the world sending international students to U.S. institutions of higher education,” said Thomas Farrell, deputy assistant secretary of state for academic affairs. “Close to 80,000 Indian students come to the U.S. every year.”

Norm Arkans, the UW’s executive director of media relations and communications, noted that about 300 of these students are here at the UW. By working with universities and corporate offices in India, Emmert hopes to expand on those numbers.

“One of the core messages of the trip is we encourage students from India to come to the United States and learn about things, and we encourage our students here to go to India,” Arkans said.

Stemming from a summit held by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in January of last year, the delegation includes two state department officials and the leaders of five other schools across the nation. These delegates represent an intentionally diverse array of the different types of education available in the United States, from community colleges to private liberal arts schools to major research institutions like the UW.

“We wanted individuals who would clearly represent their sector, rather than their particular university,” Farrell said. “We want the president of the UW to be one rep of the wealth of higher education that’s available in the U.S. We want him to speak for the nation.”

Yet Emmert acknowledges the benefit for the UW in being the only representative from a large research institution.

“I think it’s really good for the UW to have us represented as speaking on behalf of the major research universities across the country,” he said.

India, with a population of more than one billion, has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. The country’s GDP real growth rate is 8.5 percent, exceeding the United States’ 3.4 percent, Japan’s 2.8 percent or the United Kingdom’s 2.7 percent.

“The talent pool in India is enormous,” Farrell said.

He also stressed the importance of India’s highly developed higher education sector and its potential to work constructively with U.S. schools.

“There are opportunities for real collaboration between American research universities and institutions with their counterparts in India,” Farrell said.

After the delegation is complete, Emmert plans to extend his trip for a few days.

“He decided it would be a good idea to meet with some of the people we know in India,” Arkans said.

Through visits with alumni in the area as well as discussions with other educational centers and international branches of companies like Google and Microsoft, Emmert hopes to continue making the UW a more globally networked institution.

“Universities have this wonderful way of linking people and cultures, especially young people, in ways that no other institutions can do,” Emmert said.

Reach reporter Trevor Klein at news@thedaily.washington.edu.