{{Short description|Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University (1889-1937)}} {{Use Indian English|date=October 2019}} {{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}} {{Infobox person |image = Iqbal in Afghanistan.jpg |caption = Ross Masood, {{small|(right)}} with Sulaiman Nadwi {{small|(center)}} and Muhammad Iqbal {{small|(left)}} in Afghanistan |birth_date = 15 February 1889 |birth_place = Delhi, British India |death_date = {{death date and age|df=y|1937|7|30|1889|2|15}} |death_place = Bhopal, Bhopal State, British India |father = Syed Mahmood |relatives = Syed Ahmed Khan (grandfather) }} {{Aligarh Movement}}
'''Sir Ross Masood''' (15 February 1889 – 30 July 1937) was the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University starting in 1929.<ref name=TheGazette/><ref name=Dawn>{{cite web|url=https://www.dawn.com/news/1102777 |title=This week 50 years ago: Tributes paid to Ross Masood |author=Peerzada Salman|website=Dawn (newspaper)|date=28 April 2014|access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref>
==Early life and career== Ross Masood was the son of Syed Mahmood. His grandfather was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.<ref name=Dawn/> He had three children: one daughter, Nadira Begum, and two sons, Anwar Masood and Akbar Masood (1917–1971). Ross Masood was educated at Aligarh Muslim University and the University of Oxford.<ref name=aligarhmovement>[http://aligarhmovement.com/book/export/html/338 Syed Ross Masood - Pursuit of Excellence in Higher Education on aligarhmovement.com website] Retrieved 11 October 2019</ref>
On his return from England, Masood was elected a trustee of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College and started his own legal practice in Patna. He then entered the Indian Education Service as headmaster of the Patna High School, a professor of history at Ravenshaw College, Cuttack (Orissa), and one of the founders of Osmania University.<ref name=aligarhmovement/>
From 1916 to 1928, he was Director of Public Instruction in Hyderabad Deccan. In 1922, he travelled to Japan to assess its educational system as a possible model for Hyderabad. In his publication, ''Japan and its Educational System ''(1923), Masood recommended that Hyderabad follow a Japanese model of modernization and educational reform by focusing on the imperial tradition, patriotic nationalism, and freedom from foreign control.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hanaoka |first1=Mimi |title=Syed Ross Masood and a Japanese Model for Education, Nationalism, and Modernity in Hyderabad |journal=History of Education Quarterly |date=November 2022 |volume=62 |issue=4 |pages=418–446 |doi=10.1017/heq.2022.29|s2cid=253447706 }}</ref>
He became the Vice-Chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University in 1929. He was knighted by the British Government in the 1933 Birthday Honours list.<ref name=TheGazette>[https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/notice?service=all-notices&text=Ross+Masood Ross Masood on The London Gazette] Published 6 June 1933, Retrieved 9 October 2019</ref> Here, he introduced new courses, upgraded the syllabi and established laboratories for various science subjects.<ref>Matai-e Garan Baha Masood by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Souvenir Federation of Aligarh Muslim University Alumni Association of North America, USA, 2003</ref>
Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu published a biography of Masood in 2011.<ref>{{Citation|publisher = Anjuman Taraqqī-yi Urdū (Hind)|isbn = 978-8171601608|ol = 25056019M|location = Naʼī Dihlī|title = Rās Masʻūd|author = Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman|date = 2011|id = 817160160X}}</ref> He was the president of Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu.<ref>"Ross Masud – Bahaisiyat Sadr-e Anjuman Tarraqi-e-Urdu" by Hakim Syed Zillur Rahman, Hundredth Anniversary of Anjuman Tarraqi-e-Urdu Hind, New Delhi, 28 February – 2 March 2003</ref>
A residential hall constructed in the year 1969 in Aligarh Muslim University is named after him.
Ross Masood was linked to the British novelist E. M. Forster. Forster's novel ''A Passage to India'' (1924) is dedicated to Masood.<ref name=Outlook>{{cite web|url=https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/forster-chacha-a-personal-reminiscence/211305 |author=Scheherazade Alim|title=Forster Chacha: A Personal Reminiscence (of Ross Masood)|date=9 April 2001|website=Outlook magazine website|access-date=9 October 2019}}</ref><ref>Forster-Masood letters / edited by Jalil Ahmad Kidwai. Karachi, Pakistan : Ross Masood Education and Culture Society of Pakistan, 1984.</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links==
{{s-start}} {{s-aca}} {{succession box | title = Vice-Chancellor of AMU | years = 1929 | before = Shah Muhammad Sulaiman | after = Nawab Mohammad Ismail Khan }} {{s-end}} {{Aligarh Muslim University}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Masood, Ross}} Category:1889 births Category:1937 deaths Category:Indian Knights Bachelor Category:Aligarh Muslim University alumni Category:Indian Education Service officers Category:Vice-chancellors of Aligarh Muslim University Category:Indian Muslims Category:20th-century Indian educational theorists Category:Scholars from Uttar Pradesh