NRI
Dr. Sambhu Banik, Professor, appointed in US Presidential committee
Washington, July 02, 2008
Dr. Sunder Singh
NRI press
NRI Dr. Sambhu N. Banik, NRI community
leader, Professor of Psychology and Counseling of Bowie State University
has been appointed as a member of the President's Committee for
People with Intellectual Disabilities by President George W Bush.
President George W. Bush announced to nominate four individuals,
appoint nineteen individuals and designate one individual to serve
in his Administration. Dr. Banik will serve for the remainder of
a two-year term expiring 05/11/09.
He is serving the NRI community for
the past 40 years. He left India in 1960, finished his PhD from
University of Bristol, England. and moved to US in 1964. He also
spent few years as a teacher in Saskatchewan, Canada. He received
his BSc and MSc Degrees from Calcutta University. In January, 2007,
he was honored with the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) Institute's Bharat
Samman-Pravasi Award. Dr. Sambhu N. Banik was honoured as
the Outstanding Professor by Bowie State University couple months
ago.
He has worked almost 15-20 years with different position
for US Government in the Mental Health Administration. He had also
served in the administration of the President's father. Bush's father
appointed him as the Executive Director of the President's Committee
on Mental Retardation in 1990.
In 2004, he became the first NRI (Indian American)
to be elected as a delegate from Maryland to the GOP Convention
in New York.
After becoming naturalized American citizen, he attend
his first inaugural ball in 1977, celebrating President Jimmy Carter's
swearing-in. In 1986, he attended a White House conference on drug
abuse. He met Rudy Beserra, President Ronald Reagan's public liaison
to minority communities who eventually persuaded him to change parties.
In 1987, he switched the parties making him a rare Republican in
heavily Democratic Montgomery County.
In 1988, Reagan named Banik to the National Advisory Council on
Drug Abuse, and in 1989, he became executive director of the President
George H.W. Bush's Committee on Mental Retardation. In 1993, he
lost his job when Bill Clinton was elected president.

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