Sabith Khan, Ph.D., M.P.A., M.A.

Assistant Professor-School of Management

Book this person as a speaker:

Email: sabkhan@callutheran.edu

Speeches:

• Living a charitable life: Lessons from my parents
  My parents were both Urdu language teachers, in public schools in Bangalore, cosmopolitan city in India. Growing up, I didn't recognize fully their acts of daily charity; whether it was in tutoring their students (who were often poor and underprivileged) or helping them financially, when they approached my parents. As I grew up and studied philanthropy and charitable giving, I realize the value of their way of living and giving. As a scholar of charity and philanthropy, I have dedicated enormous amount of time examining these phenomenon in the US, and abroad. I believe charity, as it is practiced in individual settings has the power to change lives, much more than we give it credit for. My parents lives is a testament to that.

• Value of diversity
  Having grown up in the most cosmopolitan city in India, Bangalore; I have taken diversity for granted. However, I did realize that it is not the norm in many places - even within India - and I have had to grapple with challenges to diversity: in thought, religious ideals and other areas. Diversity is beautiful as even scriptures tell us that God created various tribes 'so they could know one another.' (Qur'an: Chapter 49)

• What is it like, to be an immigrant
  Once, a friend asked me "what is it like, to be an immigrant." While I hadn't consciously thought of this before, my questioning led me to interesting areas of examining my own experiences in the past eight years in the US. I came from India, via UAE (where I spent two years). While navigating cultural nuances is something one learns over time, one's own identity is also being reshaped. This speech offers a sneak-peak into the processes that have shaped my own identity as a scholar, immigrant and a human being.

I am  a scholar-practitioner, with expertise in American philanthropy, civil society, international development, religion and culture. I have worked across the nonprofit, for-profit and government sectors in India, UAE and the US. 

My research agenda : Charity and philanthropy are becoming increasingly important as fields of study, given the growing importance of non-state actors such as civil society groups and nonprofit organizations in our society. The introduction of Automation, Artificial Intelligence and new forms of production are sure to upend the existing models of production, in what scholars and thinkers are calling the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution.’ This is bound to have profound impact on our societies, around the world. My research agenda is to examine these changes in the realm of nonprofit organizations, technologies, governance systems and help chart a path towards managing these rapid changes. I am particularly drawn towards examining the old as well as the new: religious, cultural and governmental systems as much as technological systems that seem to be emerging fast and dominating our consciousness.

I  serve as a Board Member of The Community Impact Fund, a Washington DC based community foundation and I am an active member of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and the American Society for Public Administration(ASPA).