History of the Center

Following the University of Toronto (1986-92), the University of British Columbia (1987-1997; 2007-), Columbia University (1989-99), and the University of Michigan (1989-), UCSB was the fifth major university in North America to initiate a program in Sikh and Punjab Studies. The UCSB program resulted from a creative collaboration between the University, which funded a professorship in Sikh and Punjab Studies in 1997, and Narinder Singh Kapany, Chairperson of the Sikh Foundation, Palo Alto, who contributed a generous endowment to provide it with a significant programmatic potential.

Having established the new professorship, UCSB offered me the challenging task of establishing the program, and I arrived in Santa Barbara in September 1999. With firm support coming from the University administration, Mark Juergensmeyer, Director, Global and International Studies, and Wade Clark Roof, Chair of Religious Studies and the North American Sikh community's willingness to help our projects, I found myself in a unique position to build UCSB as one of the leading centers of teaching, research and public information in Sikh and Punjab Studies in the Western world.

During the past years, we have successfully developed a set of courses that introduce undergraduate and graduate students to Sikh and Punjab Studies. We currently have 10 doctoral students working on the Sikhs and the Punjab. Furthermore, our international conferences, publications, workshops, Summer Program in Punjab Studies, and community activities helped to disseminate information about Sikhs and the Punjab to wide-ranging forums.

To consolidate and expand the existing initiatives, the Global and International Studies Program, and Department of Religious Studies approved the creation of a Center for Sikh and Punjab Studies at UCSB in Spring 2004. Please visit the links above to see the details of our activity of the past years.

Gurinder Singh Mann

Photographs:

Chancellor Henry Yang, N.S. Kapany, and Mark Juergensmeyer,
the three people who helped the creation of the Kundan Kaur Kapany
Professorship in Sikh and Punjab Studies (Fall 1999)

Inder Kumar Gujral, a distinguished Punjabi and a former
Prime Minister of India, talking to G.S. Mann after his
lecture on Indian Politics in the 1980s (Fall 2000).

The First Punjabi Class at UCSB (1999)