The American University of Central Asia appoints interim President

June 16, 2021

The American University of Central Asia is delighted to announce the appointment of the interim president of AUCA Dr. Jonathan Becker. He is the closest friend of AUCA for being a member of the Board of Trustees for many years.

Jonathan Becker is the Executive Vice President, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College in Annandale New York, and the Vice-Chancellor of the Open Society University Network. In the academic year 2018-2019, he served as Interim President of the American University of Central Asia. Dr. Becker was awarded an honorary diploma of the Jogorku Kenesh (Kyrgyz Parliament) in September 2019.

Dr. Becker has written extensively on the role of liberal arts and sciences education globally. This year, he co-authored a chapter in 2021 on “The Impact of Liberal Arts and Sciences Education on Employment of Graduates in the XXIst Century,” in a recent book edited by Aleksei Kudrin, Danila Raskovm, and Denis Kadochnikov, Liberal Arts and Sciences as an Educational Model: World and Russian Experience  published by the Gaidar Institute. He was guest editor of a special issue of Voprosy obrazovania/Education Studies of the Higher School of Economics (Moscow) on liberal arts education in 2015, including an authoried article on “Liberal Arts and Sciences Education: Responding to the Challenges of the XXIst Century”. 

Dr. Becker earned his B.A. from McGill University and his DPhil. from St. Antony’s College, Oxford University.

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