In a League of their Own

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VOLUME 02 ISSUE 06 150A 9.9 MEDIA PUBLICATION

JUNE 2011WWW.EDU-LEADERS.COM

PROFILESudhir Jain, Director, IIT

Gandhinagar, on his quest for truth P50

CAMPUS Campuses are treading

the traditional path to stay cool P30

DIALOGUET.S. Robertson, Dean,

Wharton School of Business P40

A doctor and a consultant share what it takesto establish new trends in the leadership

of academic institutions Pg 16

LEAGUEOF THEIR OWN

IN A

Ajit RangnekarDean, Indian School

of Business, Hyderabad

Dr Vidya YeravdekarExecutive Director, Symbiosis International University

FOREWORD

1June 2011 EDUTECH

Dr Pramath Raj [email protected]

Can a Non Academic Lead?

“I have come to believe that the leadership of academic institutions is no different from that of other enterprises. You need a good leader to lead. Period.”

When I was appointed the founding dean of the Indian School of Busi-ness, there was strong endorsement from students and administrators, and mixed reactions from the academics. They were sceptical about how a “non-academic” would lead the institution. They were somewhat

relieved to learn that I had a PhD from a reputed university, had more than a dozen refereed publications to my credit, and had worked as a tenure-track teacher and researcher on the faculty of a top university.

Despite the fact that I had been an academic for only two years of my 10-year professional career at that point, it was still the redeeming feature that contributed to my being accepted as the leader of an institution by the business academic community.

My own instinct, too, was that it took an academic to attract other academics — and without an academic in the top role, ISB would flounder. I have since changed my view.

I have come to believe that the leadership of academic institutions is no different from that of other enterprises. You need a good leader to lead. Period. If he happens to be an academic, great! If not, he will still succeed if he has leadership skills. And God knows, scores of both academics and non-academics have miserably failed as heads of institutions.

Our cover story this month focuses on this debate: can only academics lead higher educa-tion institutions? No doubt the majority of our institutions are led by academics and we expect that to continue. But we profile some prominent non-academics who successfully buck the trend and are setting a precedent. As the higher education sector expands, educa-tional administrators are in drastic short supply and not all academics make great institutional leaders.

Will non-academics plug the gap? Read on.

2 EDUTECH June 2011

CONTENTSJUNE 2011EDU

UPDATE 04 EVENT05 INVESTMENT BAN06 TIE-UP HIKE07 COLLABORATION INITIATIVE

VIEWPOINTS08 RAHUL CHOUDAHAHigher education at the crossroads

12 DHEERAJ SANGHIEngineering degrees: affordable, accessible

14 RISHIKESHA T. KRISHNANAdvantage India: no PhD factories here CAMPUS 30 KEEPING COOL THE GREEN WAYCampuses are using traditional Indian methods to stay coolBy Teja Lele Desai

ADMINISTRATION36 STATE UNIVERSITIES OF GUJARAT NEED A FACELIFTBy K.M. Joshi

TECHNOLOGY44 MOVING TO THE CLOUDA cost-effective option

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE Find out what’s happening in varsities around the world through The Chronicle of Higher Education

44

59

“Seeing my ideas take shape gives me immense energy. I feel fresh every morning...”—Dr Professor Sudhir Jain Director, IIT Gandhinagar

50

2 EDUTECH June 2011

CORRIGENDUMMarch-April 2011: Volume 2, Issue 3In Saving the Sciences: IISc to the Rescue, the line, “...ties with students fresh out of high school...,” should have been, “...ties with undergraduate degrees...” The minimum qualification to IISc’s BE, Integrated ME and PhD programmes is a bachelor’s degree. It did not admit high school students until now.In Technology for Quality and Collaboration (EDU Event) a quote by Madan Padaki has been mistakenly repeated and attributed to K.S. Subramanian, Director, SCMHRD .

52 ACROSS CLASSES, VIDEOS MAKE THE GRADE Jeffrey R. Young54 PLAGIARISM SLEUTHS UNDO GERMAN MINISTER’S THESIS Aisha Labi

TIMEOUT58 BOOKS59 GIZMOS & GADGETS

This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume

any liabilities for errors or omissions.

ADVERTISER INDEX SUNGARD IFC

NEC 09

ADOBE IBC

MERITTRAC BC

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VOLUME 02 ISSUE 06 150A 9.9 MEDIA PUBLICATION

JUNE 2011WWW.EDU-LEADERS.COM

PROFILESudhir Jain, Director, IIT

Gandhinagar, on his quest for truth P50

CAMPUS Campuses are treading

the traditional path to stay cool P30

DIALOGUET.S. Robertson, Dean,

Wharton School of Business P40

A doctor and a consultant share what it takesto establish new trends in the leadership

of academic institutions Pg 16

LEAGUEOF THEIR OWN

IN A

Ajit RangnekarDean, Indian School

of Business, Hyderabad

Dr Vidya YeravdekarExecutive Director, Symbiosis International University

MANAGING DIRECTOR: Pramath Raj SinhaPUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Anuradha Das MathurGROUP EDITOR: R. GiridharEDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Mala BhargavaMANAGING EDITOR: Sangita Thakur VarmaCONSULTING EDITOR: Inga Butefisch ASSISTANT EDITOR: Smita PoliteASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR: Rohini BanerjeeCONTRIBUTING EDITOR: Aniha BrarSUB EDITOR: Ruhi Ahuja

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COVER ART:DESIGN: ANIL TPHOTOS : A PRABHAKAR RAO& JITEN GANDHI

COVER STORY

16 The New Captains of AcademiaHigher education in India is booming, and contemporary systems are throwing up new leaders — savvy, conscious of the new rules of the game and not necessarily from an academic background. EDU takes a look at this emerging breed and how it is re-defining the sectorBy Padmaja Shastri

24 Ajit Rangnekar

26 Vidya Yeravdekar

28 Ashok Kolaskar

3June 2011 EDUTECH

40DIALOGUE 40 MISSION INDIADean, Wharton Business SchoolBy R. Giridhar

LEGACY60 RAVI J MATTHAI

FROM THE WORLD OF HIGHER EDUCATION

4 EDUTECH June 2011

05 INVESTMENT 05 BAN 06 TIE-UP 06 HIKE

07 COLLABORATION 07 INITIATIVE 07 VOICES & MORE

EVENT: “India is ready for an age of innovation,” said Sam Pitroda, Chair-man, National Innovation Council, at the Innovation Educators’ Conference, held recently at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad. The Centre for Innovation, Leadership and Change and the Biocon Cell for Innovation Management, had jointly organised the event on behalf of ISB. The confer-ence brought together over 250 academicians, policy-makers, consultants, students and executives from different parts of the country. The outcome, it was hoped, would be a white paper — based on the breakouts and action items developed by the participants. The paper is expected to be ready in a month’s time, along with a book, eventually. Professor Rishikesha T. Krish-nan of IIM Bangalore, who co-chaired the conference, noted that the impetus for innovation cannot be achieved unless educators learn how to create that environment at schools, colleges, universities and corporations. The event ended on a hopeful note with speakers noting that India’s higher and pri-mary education sectors would “rise up to the challenge”.

India ready for Innovation: SamInnovation Educators’ Conference stresses faculty role in meeting the challenge

Event: Dr Vivek Shenoy, DGM, Biocon, lights the inaugural lamp at the recently held ISB Hyderabad conference on innovation

IIT PATNA TO GET NEW CAMPUSUnion HRD Minister Kapil Sibal

laid the foundation stone of the

new IIT campus in Patna

recently. The institute’s 500-

acre campus will be estab-

lished near Bihta, 30km from

Patna. At the event, Sibal said,

the construction would be com-

pleted in three years. IIT Patna’s

temporary campus has been

functioning out of Patna polytechnic

premises since August 2008.

AMU VC TO FACE CBI ON GRAFT CHARGESAligarh Muslim University’s Vice Chancellor, P.

K. Abdul Azis, will face a CBI inquiry after the

HRD ministry sought the bureau’s interven-

tion. Azis has been charged with graft and

financial irregularities. It is alleged that he

made AMU pay income tax for himself as well

as the Registrar, violated regulations regard-

ing executive council meetings, and indulged

in financial bungling. He also stands accused

of plagiarism in his DSc thesis.

5000 PROGRAMMES ACCEPT GMAT IN 2011According to Graduate Management Admis-

sion Council (GMAC), the number of pro-

grammes accepting GMAT for assessment of

business and management modules around

the world has increased to 31% (from 3,800

to 5,000) in 2011. Membership of GMAC

allows access to its extensive, customised

market research and professional develop-

ment programmes. GMAC recently added

institutions such as Harvard Business School,

Stanford Graduate School of Business, Uni-

versity of California, Berkeley, London Busi-

ness School, Wharton School, Indian School

of Business, INSEAD and Hong Kong Univer-

sity of Information Technology to its list,

bringing the total membership to 200 insti-

tutes. More than 75% of its newest members

are based outside the US, including five in

Europe, and six in Asia and Australia.

UPDATE

globalupdate

5June 2011 EDUTECH

BAN: According to a report by Malaysian National News Agency, the Malaysian government has banned construction of new

medical schools for the next five years after concerns were raised regarding the quality of medical graduates. The stay is for a

five-year period starting from May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2016. In the report, the Malaysian higher education minister, Datuk Seri

Mohammed Khaled Nordin, was quoted as saying that the ban was imposed to improve the quality of education at the 33

existing medical schools for them to produce highly-trained medical officers. The schools in question have been struggling to

obtain quality teachers. Malaysia currently has 33 tertiary institutions that offer medical

programmes. Ten of these are public universities, while others are private.

By 2020, it is expected that the number of graduates or medical

officers passing out of these institutes will be at a ratio of one

to 400 of the general population. The freeze is not

expected to affect current student recruitment or affect

those seeking to study abroad. In related news, the

government is also looking into foreign institutions

accused of not training Malaysian graduates properly.

Malaysia Bans Setting Up of Med Schools

INVESTMENT: Educomp, through its a f fi l i a te company, Beacon, has announced a strategic partnership with the Great Lakes Institute of Manage-ment, Chennai. The partnership will help Great Lakes significantly expand its presence across India, with an invest-ment of 1.5bn over the next five years in the management school.

As a part of this expansion, Great Lakes will be establishing campuses in Gurgaon in collaboration with the Institute of Energy Management and Research.

Educomp, directly and through its affiliates, will provide management expertise, technology and infrastructure support to help Great Lakes in its expansion.

Educomp Invests in Great LakesThe 1.5 bn investment will be used by the institute to open new campuses

Tertiary institutions will face government scrutiny and will be asked to revamp themselves33By that year, Malaysia

will have one medical officer to 400 people2020

Shantanu Prakash, CEO, Educomp, said, “The part-nership with Great Lakes is a natural corollary of Edu-comp’s growth trajectory towards specialised higher education. It found a good fit with our plans. Our breadth of experience in the educa-tion sector and our expertise in various verticals will help in enlarging the reach and scope of Great Lakes.”

Bala Balachandran, Found-er and Dean of Great Lakes and JL Kel-logg Distinguished Professor at the Kel-logg Business School, US, said, “This synergistic partnership of two giants, one a thought-leader and content provider

(Great Lakes) and the other in communi-cating and delivering value through tech-nology and e-learning, gives an immense opportunity to provide eternal and per-petual value to the world at large.”

Future Perfect: The Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, to expand its base

6 EDUTECH June 2011

UPDATE

TIE-UP: The Azim Premji School of Education at the Hyderabad campus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences will offer degrees in education, related pro-grammes and also conduct research. It is expected to become fully operational in two years.

“We will start the session from this academic year (2011) at a state govern-ment educational institution in Hyder-abad and later it will be shifted to TISS campus,” said TISS Director S. Para-suraman. The Azim Premji Foundation will provide financial support to the new school to develop infrastructure and con-duct research. The institute will leverage work being carried out at the 75-year-old Tata Institute, and at the Azim Premji University being set up by the founda-tion in Bengaluru. “Improving the qual-

TISS, Premji Foundation Join HandsTo establish school of education on the Hyderabad campus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences

ity of education must be one of the key goals of any developing country. On our part, we believe that the task (of improvement ) needs organisa-tion. Both TISS and Wipro share this vision, and therefore, we decided to col-laborate. We are honoured by this oppor-tunity. TISS is a pioneering institution when it comes to social issues,” said the foundation’s chief executive, Dileep Ran-jekar. “The Azim Premji University is uniquely focused on education and development. Our collaboration will strengthen both the institutions towards the goal of boosting education

in the country,” said Parasuraman. Both institutions believe that the ini-

tiative will require a cadre of capable and committed professionals and experts from the sector, as well as the pursuit of high-quality research rele-vant to India. The Azim Premji Univer-sity will commence its academic year from July 2011 with three postgraduate programmes — MA in education, development and teachers’ education.

Advantage: Azim Premji Foundation seeks to boost teachers’ education through new school on TISS campus

HIKE: India will double its expenditure on R&D in the next Five

Year Plan, slated to begin from 2012, the Minister of State for

Science and Technology, Ashwani Kumar, said. “The Centre will

be pushing R&D in science and technology through its XIIth Five

Year Plan. The expenditure for the department of science and

technology will be doubled to 150,000 crore. That is like 0.6%

of India’s GDP,” he said.

The minister also said that being the third-largest growing

economy in the world, India needs to enhance allocations for

science and technology. “We have decided to give significance

to research studies related to science and technology. We will

encourage people to take up pure and applied sciences and

research in them. There has been a significant decline in stu-

dents’ interest in sci-

ence and technology.

However, we are hoping

to reverse this,” he said.

Kumar added that

his ministry will part-

ner with institutes of

h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n ,

schools and science

institutes to make the subject popular among students. The

government is also planning to raise grants for INSPIRE — a

science scholarship — from 640 crore to 3,000 crore in

the next five years. “In the wake of the Japan tsunami, India

will be drilling an 8km bore hole in the Koyna region of Maha-

rashtra. It will aid our research on earthquakes. We will also

be among the five countries setting up the world’s largest

telescope in Hawaii”, he added.

India to Double its R&D Expenditure

UPDATE

globalupdate

7June 2011 EDUTECH

UPDATE

voices

“As an academic, I would not want to see higher education just

become an enlarged tech school. But we need to produce

the graduates employers want”—MATTHEW MURRAY,Associate Director, Centre for Business and Economic Research, University of Tennessee

“Establishing levels of tuition is a primary duty of college administrators and

governing boards. They inevitably will be in a better position to

understand the unique needs of their institutions than legislators can”— ELSON S. FLOYD, President, Washington State University

“IITs and IIMs are excellent because of the quality of students

and not because of the quality of research or faculty”

— JAIRAM RAMESH, Union Minister of Environment

INITIATIVE: XLRI, Jamshedpur, has revamped its syllabus to make business professionals more sensitive towards environ-mental and social issues. As a result, these topics have been integrated in the syllabi of management, personnel manage-ment and industrial relationship postgraduation programmes.

XLRI has invited US Fulbright scholar Gerard F. Farias to work with associate professor Tata L. Raghu Ram, to teach envi-ronment and social relationship in its new course — Sustain-able Development and Corporate Strategies.

The course, Ram said, will help students evolve strategies to avoid environmental degeneration and, at the same time, keep an eye on profits. It will focus on designing high-performance organisations while staying green, applying complexity theory to organisational sciences and on the role of business in sus-tainable development of society.

XLRI Courses Go Green

Wipro, NASSCOM to Work TogetherWipro Trust, Mission 10x, and NASSCOM will offer skill development programmes to engineering graduates

Environmental and social issues now a part of XLRI’s syllabi

COLLABORATION: Mission 10x, the trust run by Wipro, has tied up with National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) to enhance skills of engineering graduates in IT and related sectors.

“The joint initiative will offer skill development sessions such as ‘IT Foun-dation Skills’ to train graduates for employability in the burgeoning tech industry. NASSCOM’s assessment of competence technology will be used to assess skills through diag-nostic and final tests,” explained Vice President (HR), Wipro, Pratik Kumar.

About 550,000 engineer-ing graduates pass out every year from approximately 3,000 Indian colleges. Though India has one of the world’s largest scientific and engineering pools, the growing demand-supply

gap for skilled, industry-oriented profes-sionals is expected to test the limits of its manpower. The programmes will support deployment of e-learning content, such as “Aarambh”, for faculty capacity building. It will promote a unified learning approach to reduce the gap between academia and industry. “The initiative will provide equal opportunity to aspirants,” Kumar added.

“Industry has already been investing in employees’ skill development through

in-house programmes and certification courses. To ensure scalability, we are working with government bodies, academia and the IT-BPO industry,” said NASSCOM President Som Mittal. Launched in 2007, the not-for-profit Mis-sion10x teaches over 13,000 aspirants the innovative learning approach.

5.5 lakh graduates

pass out every year from

India’s 3000 engineering

colleges

VIEWPOINT Rahul Choudaha

8 EDUTECH June 2011

Higher Education at the Crossroads

The two extremes of post-secondary education, vocational and doctoral, are facing acute quantitative and qualitative challenges in attracting talent, deliv-ering value and meeting society’s expectations.

Vocational education is impaled on the quantitative front by the large gap between demand and supply. According to the Ministry of Labour & Employ-ment, Government of India, while 12.8mn people are added to the labour force annually, vocational training is available to only a miniscule 4.3mn.

On the qualitative scale lies the dismal skill development and training scenario. A report by the World Bank notes that over 60% of graduates from the vocational stream in India remain unemployed even three years after graduation.

A telling assessment of the poor quality of training imparted to students.If vocational training is in a shambles, not much can be written about the

postdoctoral education system either, struggling with the issues of quality and accessibility. According to the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India, universities enrolled nearly 36,000

students in doctoral programmes in 2005-06 — a disproportionately small number for one of the largest education systems in the world enrolling more than 8.5mn students at the undergraduate level. Despite such a small number of PhD enrolments, concerns for quality and rigour of training have been growing.

The challenges faced by vocational and doctoral education systems in India are complex and dynamic, wherein choices are driven by societal and labour market rewards. Competition for scarce resources and jobs is high. As a result, there is a marked preference for career paths with low risk and high employability.

The twin factors drive students to pursue cours-es that, apart from high salaries, also offer pros-pects for going abroad. A student wanting to pur-sue low paying career choices like social work with a not for profit outfit, or technical diploma at a polytechnic institute, would be under pressure from family and society to opt for a more lucrative option, even though he may neither have an inter-est nor an aptitude for it.

The following five major changes proposed at societal, policy and institutional levels, will pave the way for better post-secondary education in India.

India is slated to become a top ranking talent provider, globally by 2020, provided it brings about quantitative and qualitative changes in its vocational and doctoral studies curricula. As of now, they are poor cousins to the more lucrative course

choices for India’s youth.

VIEWPOINT Rahul Choudaha

10 EDUTECH June 2011

The two extremes of post- secondary education, vocational and doctoral, are facing acute quantitative and qualitative challenges in attracting talent, delivering value and meeting society’s expectations

Diversify Institutions The Indian post-secondary education system needs to recognise the value of institutional diver-sity. To quote noted higher education researcher Frans van Vught, member of the Group of Policy Advisors to the President of the European Com-mission, diversity among institutions is expected to “…better serve the needs of the labour market, offer more and better access to a larger student body and allow institutional specialisation by which the effectiveness of the overall higher edu-cation system increases.” He adds that institu-tional diversity offers various career pathways to students and stimulates upward social mobility.

Develop Infrastructure Both doctoral and vocational educations need good infrastructure to make them effective. Doctoral education needs an ecosystem of scholars and peers along with research laboratories and libraries to create an engaging and rigorous training environment. Such an enabling atmosphere provides students the opportunity to engage in collaborative learning and publishing of research papers leading to advancement in the field of research. Similarly, for vocational education to thrive, infrastructural support — providing opportunities for skill development through hands-on practice in workshops and laboratories — must be provided.

Inform and EmpowerKnowledge empowers, and information and self-awareness are the keys to sound career-making decisions. Prospective students must be empow-ered with a better understanding of their own skills, strengths and interests. They need to be informed about the potential of the variety of edu-cational and career paths that confront them when they step out of school.

In the absence of such information, they depend on their families and friends to help them make crucial career choices. At the school level itself, an efficient system of career counselling and infor-mation dissemination must be established to assist students in making well-thought out and informed career choices.

Collaborate with StakeholdersInspiring more students to pursue academic careers and hence doctoral programmes requires early engagement. For most undergraduate students, jobs remain a priority. Early conditioning can break some stereotypes about an academic career. On the other hand, industry

support and partnership for vocational programmes is imperative to make learning effective and ensure the employability of students.

Focus on Quality Higher education policy in India — obsessed with increasing access — has, in the process, compro-mised the quality of education. Undoubtedly, institutional growth and student access are important goals, but the lack of a reliable quality assurance mechanism has resulted in graduate under-employability and unemployability. As a result, an engineering graduate, unemployable in the sector of his specialisation, ends up working as a call centre executive. The need is to integrate the post-secondary system and ensure quality education for maximising students’ potential. For this, the government can engage reputed public and private institutions to take up mentorship roles. According to the World Economic Forum, “more than 100mn people from India — the equivalent of the combined labour forces of the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain — are projected to join the workforce by 2020. With the youngest age profile among large economies and the largest national workforce, India holds great potential to become one of the most attractive tal-ent providers.” For this to happen, India must put its post-secondary education system in order.

Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/content/newsletters

RAHUL CHOUDAHAA higher education specialist based out of New York, Dr Choudaha specialises in strategic management of higher education, institution building, collaborations and market development. He holds a PhD in higher education from the University of Denver, an MBA from NITIE, Mumbai and BE from Jabalpur University. He can be reached at [email protected]

VIEWPOINT Dheeraj Sanghi


Engineering Degrees: Affordable, Accessible

Help from AuthoritiesThe state can help reduce the initial cost of setting up a college by offering land at a lower cost. The promoter can return the gesture by starting the insti-tute through a gift, used to build infrastructure and/or set up an endowment whose interest income will add to the resources of the college.

In terms of recurring costs, the biggest component is faculty salary. For a teaching-only institution, a faculty-student ratio of 1 to 15 is a luxury. AICTE should immediately change it to 1 to 25. This will legalise the status quo at a vast number of existing colleges and enable honest players to enter the sector. Since this ratio is not adequate for research programmes, AICTE could look at a model where the faculty size is determined separately by undergraduate

and postgraduate students. It could be 1 to 25 for the former and 1 to 10 for the latter.

The council should also continue to upgrade its infrastructure requirements. For example, there is no need for a minimum number of PCs in an era when most students own a laptop. Library sizes can be reduced since content is increasingly available digitally over the campus LAN in one’s hostel room. Many of these requirements add to cost, without adding to quality.

AICTE could also look at allowing bigger insti-tutions. Currently, most of our colleges have a student strength of just 2,000 or fewer. In a country with such a poor gross enrolment ratio that we are keen to double in the next five years, we must look at colleges with student populations of at least 5,000 to 10,000. This will allow econo-mies of scale, particularly when it comes to infrastructure utilisation.

To give an example, in a large class, half the students can have lectures in the morning and labs in the afternoon, and the other half can do the reverse, thereby doubling the usage of labs and lecture halls. AICTE has made a start by allowing an evening batch to attend colleges, but it needs to go far beyond this.

In the last issue, I analysed the price of providing engineering education and looked at some of the areas in which expenditure was being wasted, such as in paying sub-standard faculty and bribes to avoid fee regulation. In this follow-up, I

share a range of methods governments, promoters and the management of academic institutions could use to make access to quality engineering education more affordable.

Dheeraj Sanghi VIEWPOINT

13June 2011 EDUTECH

Administrative overhead can be reduced with good campus management. Internet-based conference solutions can obviate the need to bring in visiting faculty. Instead, staff can deliver from offices

Alternate Revenue SourcesTechnical universities should also take a close look at the curriculum. Teaching six to seven courses a semester is counter-productive because students cannot learn so much at one time. This set-up also increases faculty costs. If curricula have only five courses per semester, faculty costs will go down, and learning will improve.

Currently, the small number of research projects that faculty undertakes is funded out of tuition income. Faculty members should be strongly encouraged to write project proposals to govern-ment funding agencies like the Department of Sci-ence and Technology, Department of Information Technology and the like, and also to industry.

Another revenue source — at least for institutions providing higher-quality education — is workshops and short-term courses. Most institutions already run these for their students and faculty. If marketed properly, they can attract a lot of high-paying indus-try players. Management institutes already earn sig-nificant revenue this way, and there’s no reason engineering colleges cannot do the same.

Sharing facilities with outsiders is one more idea. A computer training institute could use the comput-ing labs in the evening when there is less student demand. Lecture halls can be shared outside the col-lege’s normal lecture hours. Empty guest house rooms could be rented to outsiders. Students’ pri-mary healthcare room could double up as a doctor’s clinic for non-students outside hours.

On-campus businesses like bookstores, photo-copying services and canteens need not be given space for free or low rent. Higher charges for these businesses are a politically acceptable way of getting students to pay more for the costs they incurred.

One source of revenue that Indian institutions seem reluctant to tap are philanthropists, founda-tions and alumni. And, of course, government can help by offering tax incentives for these. Cur-rently, those who donate to educational institutes receive an income tax rebate on 50% of the dona-tion (except institutes of national importance like IITs, which attract a 100% rebate). The new bud-get proposes that companies that give money to educational institutes for research can deduct 200% of the expense from their income. This 200% rebate should be given on contributions to teaching as well.

Variable Pay MechanismVariable payment mechanisms that give students from financially weaker sections access to engi-neering courses could be introduced, with higher charges for those who are better able to afford

them. One simple idea is to have lower fees for students from the same state and higher fees for students from outside. Typically, students from financially weak backgrounds study in their respective states, and such an arrangement would suit state governments.

Also, governments might allow an increase in average tuition if colleges offer scholarships to students from weaker financial backgrounds.

To borrow a trick from the healthcare industry, there could be different kinds of hostel rooms, with someone taking up a higher-cost hostel room being charged a higher fee.

Technology should also be used to bring down costs. In particular, the administrative overhead can be reduced with a good campus management sys-tem. Internet-based conferencing solutions can obviate the need to bring visiting faculty all the time. Instead, staff can deliver seminars sitting in their offices. Meanwhile, cameras at strategic locations can reduce the number of security guards needed.

Finally, after all the cost savings, there would still be students who could not afford engineering education. Getting a loan must be made easier. To enable and encourage students to go for MTech and PhD programmes, a portion of the loan should be waived when students delay earning by going for research programmes.

If all stakeholders are serious about improving the quality of engineering education, the goal is achievable, and without restricting access.


DHEERAJ SANGHIDr Sanghi is the former director of Laxmi Narayan Mittal Institute of Information Technology, Jaipur. He is a professor of computer science at IIT, Kanpur. Dr Sanghi has a BTech in computer science from IIT Kanpur and an MS and a PhD from University of Maryland, USA . He can be reached at [email protected]

VIEWPOINT Rishikesha T. Krishnan


Advantage India: No PhD Factories Here

Ramachandra Guha who wears many hats — biographer, cricket-writer, essay-ist and historian — began his illustrious career as an ecologist. In 2008, Foreign Policy ranked Guha among the world’s top 100 public intellectuals.

Anil Gupta, professor, IIM Ahmedabad, was the catalyst in the formation of Honey Bee Network, a collective effort to document innovations and improve-ments made by farmers, in the late 1980s. More than 20 years later, he is consid-ered to be the world’s foremost proponent of grassroots innovations.

Manindra Agrawal, a computer scientist, with his students at IIT Kanpur solved one of the world’s toughest mathematics problems — an algorithm that can test the primality of a number in polynomial time. Agrawal won the Clay Research award, Fulkerson prize, Godel and Infosys prize for it.

Sujata Ramadorai, professor at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, is India’s leading mathematician. She is the recipient of the Bhat-nagar award, and a member of the Science Advisory Council.

Samir Brahmachari heads CSIR, India’s eminent scientific research body. But, he made his reputation as an innovative scientist in molecular biophysics.

The common thread binding these five eminent-ly successful Indians is that all of them obtained their doctoral degrees from Indian institutions — Guha from IIM Calcutta, Gupta from Kurukshetra University, Agrawal from IIT Kanpur, Ramadorai from TIFR and Brahmachari from the Indian Insti-tute of Science.

Yet, India’s brightest and best academic hopefuls make a beeline for American universities. How do we explain this paradox? Are our students poorly informed, or is it just an oversight? Or, are these academics exceptional cases?

Four of the five thought leaders identified above are from India’s top institutions and don’t represent the university system per se. It could also be argued that their achievements are, in spite of, rather than because of, their training in Indian doctoral pro-grammes. Agreed, but then an Indian PhD need not be a millstone. Though we have outstanding schol-ars and intellectuals who did PhDs from universities abroad, the five identified here stand out.

In recent years, the research-oriented postgrad-uate programmes under the Indian system have

The absence of a well-entrenched research culture in India may be a disadvantage when it comes to the lack of rigorous methods, attention to detail and critical funds. But, it can also foster original thinking

along with the spirit of adventure, specially in humanities, social sciences and management.

Rishikesha T. Krishnan VIEWPOINT

15June 2011 EDUTECH

Most theories have originated from the west and appear inadequate to explain the social, cultural or business phenomena of the developing world

been criticised. One government-appointed panel went so far as to say that there was a complete neglect of research by Indian universities.

At the aggregate level this criticism may be well-deserved. The quality of research here on the aver-age is poor when measured by citations or impact.

Only three or four institutions from India figure in the top 500 university list of Shanghai Jiangtao University, a ranking that is based largely on research output and impact. Recent estimates sug-gest that the research productivity of our top engi-neering schools (the IITs) is about one-tenth that of the top schools in the US such as MIT or Stanford.

Our annual output of PhDs in engineering and computer science is small, our research output though growing is dwarfed by the tremendous burst from China, and even in a subject like chemistry where we were traditionally strong we have a world share of about 6% against China’s 17%. The situa-tion in the social sciences is even worse.

Mechanical Vs CreativeThe advantages of US research programmes are well known, particularly in science and engineer-ing which are well endowed with funds and equipment. In the “publish or perish” culture, fac-ulty has a self-interest in encouraging doctoral students — their work helps the faculty get more publications. Quality is high because research grants are given out by agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the US Depart-ment of Energy on a competitive basis. Successful professors in engineering schools run their labo-ratories almost like factories with a continuous supply chain of bright students, and an internal division of labour where senior students and post-docs guide new students. Professors concentrate on fund-raising and external relations, much like the CEO of a corporation or a university president.

This mechanical approach to research is predomi-nantly what Thomas Kuhn (arguably the most influ-ential contemporary philosopher of science and author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions) calls normal science. Research is focused on problem-solving that extends current knowledge rather than establishing new paradigms. In the social sciences, where conceptual paradigms also represent world views, working within a particular paradigm can result in branding an individual for life.

Traditionally, European universities were more open to divergent thinking. However, in the past two decades, they has been trying to catch-up with the American system. This reflects in the British rating system for universities that focuses on research out-put in terms of the number of publications in hier-

archically categorised journals. Even the French are now asking that academics publish in English in well-recognised international outlets, rather than their traditional French journals.

Promotes Original Thinking Is it possible that the absence of a well-entrenched research culture could be an advantage rather than a disadvantage? In many ways, the answer is no. Robust research involves careful research design, rigorous methods, and, in these days of large data sets and powerful computers, strong mathe-matical skills. If the weakness of a research culture means less attention being paid to these critical ele-ments, one’s findings will not stand up to the intense scrutiny of peers across the world.

But, under certain circumstances, the answer is yes. It could help us avoid the intellectual straight-jacketing that goes with strong paradigmatic bound-aries. It could help researchers pay more attention to the weak signals that reflect emergent phenomena. It can promote original thinking. These traits would be of particular value to the humanities, social sci-ences and management where extant theories don’t capture reality well. Most theories have originated from the west, and appear inadequate to explain the social, cultural or business phenomena of the devel-oping world, particularly India.

We would do well to preserve some elements of an iconoclastic view of the world in our higher education system. As Rabindranath Tagore said in his 1919 The Centre of Indian Culture address, one should not allow restricted thinking to kill or hamper the creation of a new thought by a new combination of truth.


RISHIKESHA T. KRISHNANDr Krishnan is a professor of corporate strategy at IIM Bangalore. He has a MSc in physics from IIT Kanpur, MS in engineering-economic systems from Standford University, and a PhD from IIM Ahmedabad. He can be reached at [email protected]


CaptainsNewThe

of Academia

“I run the institute from a business point of view,

applying strategic thinking. Before we reached out to the student community, we did

a market analysis of our prospective students”

To read full interview turn to page 24

—Ajit RangnekarDean, Indian School of Business

“I believe in total autonomy for faculty and staff, but with accountability”

“I want to enable students to learn what is needed to make a

difference in society and become leaders who care for the

environment”

“NU is trying to build a research-driven culture by

collaborating with industry and universities, inside

and outside India”

To read full interview turn to page 26

—Vidya YeravdekarExecutive Director, Symbiosis

—Anil SachdevFounder& CEO, SOIL

—Sekar ViswanathanVice President, University Affairs, VIT

—Rajeev ShoreyPresident, NIIT University

“I strongly encourage team work at VIT, as I believe that success can be sustained only through hard work by teams, and not by a few individuals’ heroic deeds”

Leadership COVER STORY

17June 2011 EDUTECH

Leadership in higher education has been long considered the sole preserve of

the dons — the academic variety. The traditional school of thought is that colleges are not businesses and academic deans and institutional heads are not corporate CEOs. However, upon a closer look at their work environment and profile, we can find distinct similarities. While there is plenty of opportunity for each to learn from the other, it is not uncommon now to find a former business head helming the academic ship. What’s more, they are doing a fine job. In this issue we take a look at institutions under these crossover captains.

BY PADMAJA SHASTRI


COVER STORY Leadership

It is not just the students who flock to the Indian School of Busi-ness (ISB), Hyderabad. It’s also the

school that goes in search of its students. Just as corporates analyse their custom-ers, ISB, too, conducts a market analysis of its prospective students. Thanks to an active strategy, the institute has managed to work out the right mix of gender and diversity that meets world-class stan-dards. After being stuck with a low gen-der ratio — at only 25% women students for the past three years — this year the school gave admissions to 28% women.

Ajit Rangnekar, Deputy Dean, ISB, and former head of PwC, Hong Kong and Philippines, is the force behind this gender balance of the premier institu-tion. Rangnekar, who joined ISB in 2003, is perhaps the most well-known head of an Indian institution from a diverse pro-fessional field. He is also among the prominent leaders of academia that peo-ple point to, to prove professionals from

other fields do make successful educa-tion leaders. These new captains of aca-demia, comprising corporate heads, army officers, doctors and lawyers, bring with them diverse experience and exper-tise. They have introduced new and pro-fessional ways of managing institutions, turning them into successful ventures, and at the same time redefining academic leadership.

Earnest Workers It is not a new phenomenon, though. Professionals from other fields have helmed institutions before with either officers from Indian Administrative Ser-vices or corporate leaders being appoint-ed as vice chancellors. Ravi Matthai, the renowned founder-director of IIM Ahmedabad, came from a corporate background. Such people, however, were few. They were always considered outsid-ers and exceptions. Not anymore. The present crop of non-academic institute

heads bring with them the zeal to suc-ceed and work that little bit harder to achieve goals; partly the reason for their success. It is not unusual for Dr Rajeev Shorey, Professor and President, NIIT University (NU), to finish a class at 11pm and then brainstorm with stu-dents until past midnight. Students are his priority and they can get an audience with him anytime. Not many institutions can boast of round-the-clock access to their top shot. Shorey, who earlier head-ed Vehicle Communications and Infor-mation Management Group at General Motors India Science Laboratory, is clear that, for a university to reach the next level, it is important to understand the youth. “You can understand this only when you meet students,” he says.

Fresh PerspectiveMost of them rely on professional experi-ence outside academia to create new benchmarks of administration. Their

Academia today requires effective leaders. Professionals from diverse fields armedwith practical experience and wide-ranging knowledge are infusing a breath of freshness into campuses and redefining academic leadership

UncharteredWaters

Navigating

Successfully

19June 2011 EDUTECH


industry insight is especially required to bring about turnarounds.

When Swati Mujumdar took over the reins of Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning (SCDL), her staff’s lackadaisi-cal attitude and lack of enthusiasm for anything new shocked her. “There was no concept of timelines or standards for performance,” says Mujumdar, used to vibrant and competitive work environ-ment after her 12-year stint in the US with companies like Nortel Networks, EDS, Cisco and Compuware.

Realising that it was more the system than the people that was at fault, Mujum-dar decided to overhaul the system. In the first two years, she concentrated on streamlining business processes and developing a value system. From intro-ducing proper documentation to develop-ing manpower, everything was done with care. Roles were rejigged and new people hired. Soon the employee attitude also started changing. “My background in the IT industry helps me anal-yse issues and think of work in terms of flow charts,” says Mujum-dar. It was only when she had taken care of the basics that she decided to turn her focus to expan-sion and she started introducing two to three new courses every year. Within two years, their strength grew to one lakh students from around 10,000. “I did some simple things like putting bar codes on assignments so that any-body could do data entry and intro-ducing online tracking of assign-ments, exams, fees, and dues on our website, so that students did not have to call us all the time,” she says. All the institutes’ IT systems were developed in-house and they spent just 1.5 lakh on it. Mujum-dar also generated MIS (Manage-ment Information Systems) reports on the assignments pend-ing with each faculty and then had them collected from their home, if necessary. This resulted in faster evaluation. She also opened a full-fledged call centre to create a

centralised information resource. This helped save time that departments spent on answering calls.

Lalit Kathpalia, Director, Symbiosis Institute of Computer Studies and Research, used his long experience at Infosys to convince management to introduce enterprise resource-planning at the university. “Thanks to our young, IT-savvy director, all processes will now be automated and computerised. With a click of a button the chancellor, vice chancellor and I, can now access all information about the institutes,” says Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Executive Director, Symbiosis International University. Yer-avdekar was herself a doctor before she took the reins of Symbiosis.

Sekar Viswanathan, Vice President-University Affairs, VIT University, also

comes with corporate experience. He learnt how to get things done with few resources when he worked with Net-Clerk, a start-up in the US. Based on his experience there, he created small teams of 10 people to head research specialisa-tions in each school of VIT. “Small teams are cohesive, work with speed, share responsibilities and have easier access to the leader. There was a spurt in research publications and we also improved at faculty welfare while ensuring work sat-isfaction,” he says. Viswanathan’s stint at IT behemoth IBM taught him the power of teamwork in meeting deadlines and achieving targets through an appropriate distribution of work. He has put this theory to work at VIT as well. At the start of a new session, each faculty member is assigned courses to suit their back-

ground. New and familiar cours-es are combined to achieve com-mon goals. “Success can be sustained only through teamwork and not by few individual heroic deeds,” asserts Viswanathan.

At VIT, meetings have a definite focus and start and end on time. Only relevant people are invited and decisions and action items noted and e-mailed within 24 hours. “I learnt this efficient way of conducting meetings at Walmart,” shares Viswanathan. His industry stint also helped him introduce administrative reforms that have made it easy for students to get refunds and cer-tificates through a single window and for staff to get promotions.

At NU and VIT, each employee has a set of targets. Just like the cor-porate sector, employees here get increments and promotions based on their performance. Measure-ment criteria for faculty includes the number of research papers pub-lished, conferences conducted and

collaborations forged with indus-try in opening a research lab or

another relevant task. At VIT, faculty can get up to one

month salary as bonus for good feedback. Evalua-

tion is based on a 100-

—Aruna KataraPresident and Dean, Administration, International Institute of Information

Technology, Pune

“I am a quick learner and was lucky to have eminent people like Dr Vijay Bhatkar to

guide me”



point scale, which includes a 360 degree evaluation by students, self and superiors.

At NU, as reward for good research, faculty is sponsored for conferences abroad. They are also allowed to offer consultancy services to industry. When the research paper of a faculty member is published in a reputed journal, a cer-tain extra amount is automatically cred-ited into his or her salary account.

Shorey’s industry experience also helped him handle the challenge of qual-ity faculty. Many of his highly qualified friends in the industry, joined him as adjunct faculty.

It was again industry experience that helped Anil Sachdev, founder and CEO of the School of Inspired Leadership (SOIL) in attracting talented faculty. Sachdev persuaded his friends, who were leading faculty members across the world, to teach as guest faculty at SOIL. In fact, it was his client and friend of many years, B. Muthuraman, Managing Director, Tata Steel, who was the first

person to confirm his company’s partici-pation in SOIL’s “Industry Consortium”.

Innovating to LeadAccording to Kolaskar, besides improv-ing systems, an institution head has to work with a vision and objective that bring about changes and innovations to meet desired goals.

Innovation starts right from the entrance tests at SOIL, which uses CALi-PER reports to shortlist candidates.

“Instead of relying on the traditional CAT or GMAT tests, we decided to use this assessment tool that measured not just IQ, but also EQ,” says Sachdev. SOIL had three workshops over four months involving industry leaders, academics, consultants and independent thinkers to design its curriculum. Social innovation projects are an important part of the cur-riculum. Under this, students work one day a week with NGOs working for dis-advantaged sections. “The idea is to enable students to learn what is needed to make a difference in society, develop compassion and become leaders who care for the planet,” says Sachdev. He sold his HR consulting firm, Grow Tal-ent that he had founded to fund SOIL, a B-school with a vision to develop leaders who truly care for the globe. SOIL was co-created by a consortium of 33 like-minded companies. Like Sachdev, Rang-nekar, too, is continuously on the look-out for ways to keep ISB socially relevant. He has formed a consortium of people

from social service, public policy and industry to assist in keeping the institu-tion tuned to social needs. Based on their feedback, he intends to initiate research and other programmes on topical issues.

At NU, BTech student interviews are recorded on video and later used to track their progress. Students can themselves see their progress over the years in their domain knowledge, soft skills and even body language. NU is currently in the

process of creating an intellectual prop-erty (IP) database and signing up with a patent firm to enable its faculty and stu-dents to file patents. “If you innovate, you must be rewarded,” says Shorey, who has 10 patents to his credit. “NU is also trying to build a research-driven cul-ture by collaborating with industry and universities, inside and outside India,” he adds. It is trying to get its students to work with PhD students of IIT.

Reaching Out GloballyThe new-age professional academic leaders have brought a breath of fresh air to the sys-tem, predominantly indifferent to global reforms. “There are two reasons why this is a welcome trend. One, there is no talent pipeline within the higher education sector making it imperative to seek it outside. Two, people from different milieus bring fresh thinking to institutions, most of which are insulated and static,” says Amitabh Jhingan, Partner, Education Prac-tice, Ernst&Young. The changing dynam-

ics of higher education in India have made it necessary to reach out to industry and integrate education with the needs of stu-dents and employers.

Students’ expectations of institutions have changed dramatically in the past two decades. They now need more than just adequate knowledge of their core subject to get the right breaks in an increasingly competitive world. “These days, besides an understanding of aca-demics, running an educational insti-

“These days, besides an understanding of academics, running an educational institute

also involves understanding aspirations of all its stakeholders – students, faculty, parents,

staff and employers”—Shashi Gulhati

Former CEO, EdCIL

21June 2011 EDUTECH


tute also involves understanding aspira-tions of all stakeholders — students, faculty, parents, staff and employers. The expectations from an institute head have also multiplied. They must not only have a vision but also excellent management and communications skills. She or he should be able to gen-erate resources for the school and be able to motivate, build teams and infuse enthusiasm for inter-disciplinary research. None of this comes from mere academic achievement,” says Shashi Gulhati, retired professor of IIT, Delhi and former CEO of Educational Consultants. According to him, the whole concept of giving thrust to just academic achievements while selecting heads for institutions needs to be turned on its head.

That’s precisely what Dr Yeravdekar did when she tracked K.S. Subramani-an, an alumnus of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, to head its flagship institute, Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development (SCMHRD). They had been unable to find anyone right despite interviewing academicians, till they met Subramanian who was work-ing with a Dubai-based firm at the time. Though, not a PhD, he made SCMHRD a brand.

“I have arguments with statutory council committees when they come to Symbiosis and tell me that some of your heads of institutes are not PhDs. I tell them, we need performers and look for dynamic leaders and not just quali-fications on paper,” says Dr Yeravdekar.

To give a fillip to its research activities Amity University appointed senior scien-tists from government research institu-tions like Defence Research and Develop-ment Organisation (DRDO), in leadership roles. It filed over 120 patents in a single year following the change. Thinking out-of-the-box also makes sense when insti-tutes are venturing into new fields.

When Symbiosis started its institute of Geoinformatics, there were not many academicians who could head it. The University appointed Brigadier K.K.V. Khanzode, from the Military Intelligence Corps to head it.

sities and 20,000 colleges that take in about 13 million students. The XI Five Year plan envisages a major capacity expansion including 30 new universi-ties, 373 degree colleges and 1,000 poly-technics among others. This would necessitate a huge crop of academic leaders to head it. Leading an institu-tion is very demanding and compares to any high pressure job today. “For the top job in a university, an industry per-son with research and development experience and connect with academ-ics, has an edge over someone who has only been into academics. It is critical that an academic leader is exposed to real world problems. It is not necessary

Demand for DevelopmentThis new trend is more of a necessity today. “As higher education is expanding at a rapid pace, there is a shortage of leadership resources from pure academ-ics. Most institutions still prefer acade-micians for the top job. But it is time to start thinking out-of-the-box,” says P r a m o d Jo s h i , a D e l h i - b a s e d education consultant.

India needs to quickly ramp up its gross enrolment ratio from the present 12% to 30% by 2020. The National Knowledge Commission report recom-mends that we establish 1,500 universi-ties by 2015 to achieve a GER of 15%. India currently has around 400 univer-

Sometime in the 1970s, when governments globally began to move away from funding higher education institutions (HEIs), universities had to bring in professionals — strategic business management

consultants — to run the show. Thus, a new parallel leadership emerged as the role of the institutional administrative head began to change. In the US, this new leader was referred to as the president of a university. In the UK, they were referred to as provosts — experts who balanced entrepreneurship with academics with a focus on fund-raising.

In India, too, when public funding in HEIs began to decline, it resulted in the birth of many private, self-financed universities, especially in states such as Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. “There emerged a thought process which entailed that it was not necessary always to have an academician at the helm. And, appointing IAS officers as heads became a trend,” explains Dr Nigavekar. In the past five years, more state governments have gone ahead with the Private University Act, making revenue generation and stakeholder management an even more important part of an education leader’s job. Naturally, universities are now creating leadership positions parallel to the vice chancellor, taking in people from corporate backgrounds. The job of this new leader, often referred to as the president or an executive director, is similar to that of a company’s CEO. The person is in charge of establishing a university, governing it and finding the right resources — faculty and finance — image-building and managing stakeholders. “HEIs now function as strategic business units (SBUs), with a professional outlook, visionary approach and long-term planning,” says Karad. His warning: though there is sense in managing HEIs as SBUs, the fact that universities shape lives has to be kept in mind. “Healthy governance balances academics and entrepreneurship,” says Dr Nigavekar. Perhaps keeping in mind, HEIs are appointing industry experts with a some degree of academic exposure as the new CEOs of academia.

The New CEOsof Academia



Crossover Captains

to have 20 years of teaching experience to be a good academic leader,” says M.P. Kapoor, founding Vice Chancellor and Project Director, NU and former IIT Kanpur professor. It was Kapoor who had identified Shorey for the top job at NU. Shorey, who has worked at IBM Research Lab and SASKEN Technolo-gies, admits that the multiplicity of responsibilities and breadth of dimen-sions one has to handle in a university is huge. Understanding the issues of all departments, adding new programmes, creating the right environment for research and working with faculty to figure out their needs can be over-whelming. For Shorey, blending in with academia was easy thanks to his brush with academics earlier. A PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, he was adjunct faculty at IIT Delhi, and faculty in the Computer Science Depart-ment at the National University of Sin-gapore. Similarly, Sachdev, who has 35 years of industry experience, was

adjunct faculty at business schools such as the ISB, Kelly School of Business, Indiana University and others. He chose to teach even while working as a CEO of two consultancy firms he founded. In the mid-1990s, the search committees for selecting directors for IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore had tried to rope him in for the top job.

Connect and MingleHowever, not every professional leader who is joining the academic world today has academic experience. For such peo-ple the new set-up can be quite daunt-ing unless they decide to take certain steps to gel. Teaching can be an ideal way to connect with students and gain acceptance from colleagues. “Teaching helped me understand the pain points of faculty members, like the amount of preparation needed for lectures, the time taken to evaluate answer-sheets, and provide feedback to students. I also learnt how to deal with students in and

out of class,” says Viswanathan of VIT. He taught a course in database manage-ment systems for BTech computer sci-ence and engineering students in the initial years after joining the university. According to him, this hands-on approach helps in taking the right deci-sions.

For seven years, Aruna Katara, Presi-dent and Dean, Administration, Inter-national Institute of Information Tech-nology (I²IT), worked with every department in the institute — finance, human resources, admissions, exami-nation and IT. It was only after this that she got a formal designation. Even Sho-rey teaches for six to eight hours a week. Sachdev averages 20 hours of teaching per week, a mean feat even for die-hard academicians. Some of these adminis-trators are also trying to enhance their qualifications. Dr Yeravdekar got a degree in law as she felt it was neces-sary for effective administration. “Understanding the legal jargon helps

Name Designation and

Organisation Professional Background Additional Information

Parag DiwanVice Chancellor, University of

Petroleum and Energy StudiesCorporate

Was the CEO at the Feedback Reach, and Director at All India

Management Association

Anurag BeharVice Chancellor,

Azim Premji UniversityCorporate

Behar has an MBA in marketing and finance from XLRI Jamshedpur, and

a degree in electrical engineering from REC, Trichy

Najeeb JungVice Chancellor,

Jamia Millia IslamiaIAS

Nikhil SinhaFounding Vice Chancellor,

Shiv Nadar UniversityCorporate and academics

He began his professional life in the Government of India’s Ministry of

Information & Broadcasting in 1983

Dr N Prabhu Dev Vice Chancellor,

Bangalore UniversityMedicine - Cardiologist

Former Director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology

Maj Gen K. Jai Singh Vice Chancellor, Amity University Armed Forces -

Dr Yoginder K Alagh Chairperson, IRMAEconomist, Former Union

Minister

From 1996 to 1998, he was a Minister of State (Independent

Charge) for Planning and Programme Implementation,

Science and Technology and Power for the Government of India.

B.K.P. SinhaDirector, Amity School of Natural

Resources and Sustainable Development

Indian Forest Services Officer

He was Project Director, the World Bank Forestry Project and National

Co-ordinator, task force on interlinking of rivers

23June 2011 EDUTECH


in reading UGC notifications, buying land for new projects and even signing MoUs,” she says. She is also doing her PhD. “Our biradari (community) takes PhD seriously,” says Katara, who has registered for a PhD programme. Her topic, “A New Model for Development and Management of University of the 21st Century” is relevant to her job. Viswanathan is also pursuing a PhD in education management on “Faculty Motivation”. However, for those going for the degree merely to get the stamp of an academician, Dr Ashok Kolaskar, Vice Chancellor, KIIT University, has a word of advice. “Go for it only if you truly like it. If you have the stuff that is needed, degrees do not matter. Imagine Mukesh Ambani going for a PhD just to be accepted by the faculty,” he remarks.

Dr V. Shantha, Head, English Depart-ment, Jyoti Nivas College, Bengaluru, offers another suggestion. “Decentralise some of the decision-making processes and spend the first few months learning systems and structures,” she counsels.

Build ConsensusThe new-age academic leaders also need to keep the faculty clued in on major deci-sions. That was the trick Matthai used at IIM Ahmedabad. A follower of this prin-ciple, Rangnekar did not move ahead on a fellowship programme for two years as the ISB faculty was not in favour of it. It was only this year that they gave the go-ahead. “A wise dean uses consensus, not authori-ty. It is important to hear out everyone and convince them, rather than thrust your ideas on others,” he advises.

On the first Monday of every month, Yeravdekar meets directors to discuss plans. NU holds “all-hands meetings”, an industry concept Shorey brought to the university set-up, where everyone including the students participate. At VIT, too, important decisions are taken after deliberations at many levels. “Though this takes time, decisions don’t go wrong as someone is sure to point out the cons,” says Viswanathan. The univer-sity also consults student representatives on decisions that affect them.

Rahul Karad, Executive Director, MIT Group of Institutions, also values stu-

dent inputs. “I interact with students directly and share their feedback with the faculty and directors,” he says. He also discusses management issues with the staff. According to Karad, adminis-trators require keen understanding of the psyche of senior directors to be able to work in tandem.

Having the right mentors also adds up to their image, as Katara, a postgraduate in management, realised early. “I am a quick learner, but I was very lucky to have emi-nent people like Dr Vijay Bhatkar guide me,” she says. Rangnekar, too, regularly interacts with thought-leaders like Dipak Jain, Bala Balachandran and Sri Sridharan.

Wanted, a LeaderThe trend of getting professional admin-istrators will only grow with the slated growth in the sector. RNCOS, a market research and information analysis com-pany, recently said that the higher educa-tion market will grow at 15% and cross $22bn by 2013. What any institution needs is a good leader. That leader could be from academic background or be a professional from any other field. More than their background, it is the qualities these leaders possess that count. There have been enough academic heads who failed miserably, while there were professionals who felt disconnect-ed and quit.

According to the document, “Cultivate Leaders for Educational Institutions”, written by former chairman of University

Grants Commission, Dr Arun Nigavekar, “Senior academicians, though they have spent decades in the university system, remain aloof from the mainstream of dealing with complexities and intricacies of ‘intellectual human minds’. When they become a VC, she or he is neither men-tally ready nor intellectually focused to play the role.” It would also be quite unfair to say that academics cannot man-age institutions as much as saying that professionals have no place in academia. Even Nigavekar would agree that what is needed is a vision, a will to succeed, an understanding of the faculty and stu-dents, and sensitivity towards the role of a head of an institution as the facilitator who shapes future generations.

Both academics and professionals can hone their skills to make up for their weaknesses and learn from each other. “This sort of cross-fertilisation is good as long as you are passionate about educa-tion and can align with the long-term goals of the organisation,” says Kolaskar. He also thinks it is a good idea to create training programmes for higher educa-tion administrators.

It is time that the community accepts these new captains who are in a league of their own. If respected institutions like the ISB and Symbiosis have been successful with heads from diverse fields, there every reason for others to take a leap. What Indian institutions need is effective leadership to begin a successful chapter.

—Swati MujumdarDirector, Symbiosis Centre For

Distance Learning

“My background in the IT industry helps me analyse

issues and think of work in terms of flow charts. I did some

simple things like putting bar codes on assignments,

introducing online tracking to ease things”


COVER STORY Story Name

“It is a huge challenge to build a culture of excellence, while all the time keeping the business growth objective in sight”—Ajit RangnekarDean, Indian School of Business, Hyderabad

25June 2011 EDUTECH


Q: How has your experience of over 30 years in consulting and industry helped in managing ISB? A: It has given me a business perspec-tive into the management of a premier academic institution like ISB. I run the institute from a business point of view, applying strategic thinking and plan-ning. For instance, even before we reached out to the student community, we did a market analysis of our prospec-tive clients, here students, just as it is done in the corporate world. We found that typically, larger numbers of male engineering graduates apply to business schools as compared to other categories. This helped us strategise on how to reach out to a wider audience, including women, lawyers and armed forces per-sonnel. For placements too, we conduct market segmentation of prospective employers into value buyers or champi-ons among others, and accordingly decide on our sales pitch for each.

Q: In the eight years you have been at ISB, what are the challenges you faced and how did you tackle them? A: In the beginning, I did not under-stand the business of education. I slowly discovered it’s a different kettle of fish! Here, faculty members do not consider themselves employees but part owners, just like partners in a consulting firm do. At least in a consulting firm there is an easy-to-measure indicator of perfor-mance – profit. But, it is very difficult to

measure academic output. Also, unlike a corporate research organisation where there exists a clear, common agenda, in the academic world, faculty members usually pursue their own research agen-das. All you can do is create an environ-ment in which they can flourish. You should never try to impose a top-down view. It is best to work smartly and find a way by either getting pure researchers to do the research you want, or incentivise faculty with greater budgets, more peo-ple to work with and as much data as you can provide. It is a huge challenge to build a culture of excellence, while all the time keeping the business growth objec-tive in sight. I also realised that recruit-ing outstanding faculty is not going to be an easy task. It is not just about pay pack-ets. They look at things like culture of the institution, peer group and presence of other thinkers. Do you know the sin-gle biggest factor that attracts good fac-ulty? — Availability of a good school for their children. To ensure this, we are partnering with a reputed school in the vicinity of ISB and helping it get funds, while our faculty is training its teachers in effective teaching methods.

Q: What insight have you gained during your long stint at ISB? A: Despite my business approach to the administration of ISB, one of the crucial facts I have learnt is that students are not customers. A higher educational insti-tute’s relationship with its students is

complex and constantly evolving. When we first reach out to the student commu-nity, we are selling our product to them; the moment they apply, they start selling their calibre to us and once they join the institute, we become partners in mutual development. As alumni, they become co-creators of our brand. It is in the interest of an institution to ensure that students achieve their potential and become the best they can. We are launching an initia-tive called ‘Alumni Lifelong Learning’ this year, designed to help our students grow in their careers. Institutions must recog-nise that a student’s education is not over the moment s/he steps out of our portals. There is a lot more collaboration happen-ing in the academic world and it is neces-sary to spend more time on building con-sensus among faculty. However, sometimes it is difficult for such a diverse and intellectual set of people to agree on something. Your only option then is to take a deep breath and decide, but with an open mind and keen understanding of every individual’s concerns. To become a great institute, it is also important to build a great community, take care of your sup-port staff and be relevant to society.

Q: How did you gain the confidence of the various stakeholders of ISB?A: By being available to all the people all the time and listening to them. Deci-sions here are taken in a transparent manner and no major decision is ever taken unilaterally.

Ajit Rangnekar, Dean of the Indian School of Business (ISB), has brought keen business sense to the greater purpose of running a world class educational institution

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“Doctors make good administrators in any field. They have all the requisite managerial qualities ingrained in them”—Dr Vidya YeravdekarExecutive Director, Symbiosis International University

27June 2011 EDUTECH


Q: Has your expertise as a gynaecologist helped you in your role as a university administrator? They are two very different jobs.A: Doctors make good administrators in any field. They have all the requisite man-agerial qualities ingrained in them. We are used to taking snap decisions as we deal with matters of life and death. We are trained to be sensitive to the needs of patients, and hence are naturally empa-thetic towards the needs of people, be they employees, faculty, staff, students, par-ents, or other stakeholders. Doctors are also capable of hard work, used to working long hours and often round the clock dur-ing emergencies. There is an inherent quality of entrepreneurship in every doc-tor, as most of us are geared towards building our own practice ultimately.

Q: What is your approach to administrating a university? A: I believe in total autonomy for faculty and staff, but with accountability. After taking charge in 1997, one of the first things I did was slash the number of holidays and give a thrust to punctuality. Then I restructured our administrative set-up, creating departments of finance, human resources (HR), projects and purchase. Before this, the registrar was

responsible for most of these operations and several staff members too were multi-tasking. Imagine an organisation employing nearly a 1000 people func-tioning without an HR head! Another critical area that caught my attention was the piecemeal purchases being made under the many ongoing projects and institutes. To leverage economies of scale, I centralised purchase and put in a system which required each institute to fill in a requisition form for whatever they required well in advance, with no ad hoc purchases allowed. There was a lot of opposition to these streamlining activ-ities. Some heads of institutes found it difficult to accept the change as they per-ceived it as a curb on their freedom.

Q: How did you handle the staff’s resistance to change?A: The resistance died naturally, once people understood the benefits of the new system. It freed them from routine administrative work and gave them more time to concentrate on academics. In fact, now they perceive us as the back-bone of support. We clearly demarcated roles - the vice chancellor takes care of the academic governance and I look after education administration - which I believe has no business to meddle with

academics. Under this system, the HR department takes care of staff welfare, recruitment and general training in areas like team building and motivation, while the specific academic training is left to the directors/professors of indi-vidual institutes. I do not intend to ven-ture into teaching, as I believe that I can contribute much more to the governance of the university by keeping out of aca-demics. It is also important to have faith in yourself and your decisions. Once I take a decision, I stick to it no matter what. However, I always communicate all plans to the faculty and staff well in advance and try to build a consensus.

Q: Tell us about your administrative innovations.A: I launched the Symbiosis National Aptitude Test (SNAP), a common entrance exam for admission to all Sym-biosis institutes, which has been a huge success. I am currently thinking of start-ing an incubation centre on our cam-puses. I also wish to set up a public rela-tions department and hire a chief information officer, considering that we spend 10 crore annually on information technology, and are investing another 10 crore in an enterprise resource plan-ning (ERP) software.

Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Executive Director, Symbiosis International University, has brought surgical precision to university administration

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Q: Is it essential to be an eminent academician to head a higher education institute (HEI)? A: There is no rule that says only acade-micians can head an academic institu-tion. However, if you are one, the chanc-es of your succeeding are better, as you have the advantage of understanding the culture and ethos of the system bet-ter than an outsider. You would also have a good idea of the changing higher education scenario and so would keep pace with it. An academician is also more likely to understand the needs of his/her colleagues and students. It is a specialist’s job and like in any other field, those with experience in the sector have an edge over others.

Q: How can people from other backgrounds become good leaders in education?A: Interested government officials or corporate leaders should be deputed to universities or other HEIs to work as fac-ulty members or research scholars. This exposure will help them develop an understanding of the system instead of being thrust into it suddenly. If you do not belong to the community, you may not be aligned with the long-term goals of the organisation. Such aspirants must also be given training in academic lead-

ership, government functioning, etc., to enable them to govern better. At present, there is no formal training or leadership programme for higher education admin-istrators. It is learnt entirely on the job.

Q: What are the qualities of a good leader of an HEI?A: Apart from vision, innovativeness, administrative capabilities and leader-ship qualities necessary to head any organisation, leaders of higher education must possess certain specific qualities:

ABILITY TO LISTEN: It is important to listen to all stakeholder – teachers, students and parents. Even if you cannot resolve their issues, they have the satis-faction of being heard. It is an important psychological process.

HUMILITY: You must respect faculty and students. Even if the faculty is not an otherwise aware lot, it is important to know that they are specialists in their field. Never belittle them. Same with stu-dents who come from different regions and strata of society.

LEARNING QUICKLY: The ability to quickly learn and adapt to the culture of higher education institutes is a prerequisite. The organisational structure and cultural bearings of an HEI are different from organisations in any other sector. There is no clear

hierarchy. Students are not employees and are not answerable to anyone; you have to earn their respect. In corporate set-ups, the boss is always right. In universities, everyone is the boss and thinks they are always right. As a university top boss you have to not only handle all kinds of people, but also nurture them with care and carry them along.

TRANSPARENCY AND FIRMNESS: Never promise what you can’t fulfill. If something is not possible, say so firmly. Closed door meetings, especially with students, are a strict no-no. It is best to hold discussions with them in the open.

Q: How is a good education leader judged?A: By the number of positive changes or innovations you have brought in. Be it major strides in research, new ways of delivering education or the impact stu-dents of the institute have made. Cer-tainly not by the number of buildings or roads you have built or at which hill sta-tions you have held your meetings. Lead-ership is more about governance than day to day administration. Governance involves putting processes in place and improving existing systems. It is about how you take the organisation forward, and the changes you introduce.

Dr Ashok Kolaskar, Vice Chancellor, KIIT University and advisor, National Knowledge Commission, says non-academics can be trained to be good education administrators. However, academics have higher chances of success for they understand the sector better

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GREEN WAY

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31June 2011 EDUTECH

Green Cooling CAMPUS

BY TEJA LELE DESAI

cross the world, with concerns for environ-ment dominat-ing the collec-

tive psyche, green campuses have become the byword. Institutions everywhere are taking the lead in going natural to cut down on carbon footprints. Green cooling is among the concepts adopted by cam-puses to beat the summer heat without carbon-emitting air-conditioners.

Green concepts dominate the plan-ning stage itself. Thinking about green cooling during the design process pro-vides opportunities to incorporate some of the basic principles of sustainable design, including passive cooling.

Be it earth-air tunnels, shaded angled apertures, displacement ventilation or natural insulation techniques, architects and designers are advocating the use of natural methods to keep the heat out of buildings. The shift to building ideas based on considerations like sun orienta-

A tion, day lighting and shading has led to functional buildings where energy-effi-cient practices have brought down elec-tricity bills. Apart from ensuring energy conservation, green methodologies offer benefits such as increased access to day-light and fresh air. On a campus, such environment-friendly architecture prin-ciples help nurture healthy attitudes and let the next generation perfect the green language. Some cool campuses have paved the way for design innovations in architecture using traditional methods.

Life is a BreezeThe Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology (CEPT) is a cool cam-pus. Students here are a chilled lot — without an air-conditioner. No sweat, what if the country is reeling under the sweltering temperatures? For students here, keeping cool is a breeze.

CEPT is an architectural marvel where traditional systems of cooling have been successfully blended in the natural design

Green cooling may sound like a newfangled concept, but India has a tradition of natural cooling methods. Happily, institutions are now borrowing from the past to turn campuses into state-of-the-art bowers. We walk through the leafy bays to learn about sun orientation, day lighting and passive cooling

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CEPT• Deep shaded angled apertures• Building raised on pilotis• Double-height airy interiors

NIIT University• Earth-air tunnels• Light shelves and skylights• Minimal exposure on west• Shading devices for glazed areas

TERI University• Smart orientation• Earth-air tunnels• High-performance window glazing• Insulation on walls and roofs• Efficient lighting system

University of Jodhpur• Displacement ventilation• Thick stone walls• Shaded windows• Insulated roofs

Pearl Academy of Fashion• Structure designed around water body• Evaporative cooling• Inverted matkas used for roof

insulation

Beating the Heat with Green Cooling

CAMPUS Green Cooling

and architecture plan. Architect B.V. Doshi, who compares his structure to a “functional factory building”, says: “Apart from deep shaded angled apertures set in the wall to keep the glare and heat out, we decided on a north-south orientation of parallel bays for better air flow and to diminish the impact of the sun.” He adds that the height of spaces was planned according to activity requirements, for example double-height airy interiors to be used as drawing studios and single-height ones for discussion groups or class-rooms.” The utilisation of open spaces in CEPT is again worth emulating. The Cen-tre has a series of walkways, a combina-

tion of steps and platforms, which serve as interlocking common spaces for infor-mal gatherings. The building has been raised on pilotis (piers) and the shaded areas underneath work as multifunction-al spaces where classes, indoor games and competitions are held in the natural breeze. As a result these areas are well-used at times when campus activities in other institutions see a decline.

Borrowing from TraditionAt NIIT University, Neemrana, the designers, Space Design Consultants, and master planners, YRM London, turned to an age-old building technique

to keep the interiors cool. The university showcases the use of earth-air tunnels — a low-energy cooling system that works on the principle that the tempera-ture recorded at about 4m below the sur-face is around 10-12 degrees lower than the temperature on the ground. In this system, which uses only 30% of the energy of a normal air-conditioning sys-tem, fresh air is drawn through an underground duct (the “earth-air tun-nel”) laid 4m down.

Heat exchange with the underground duct cools down the air, which is then treated for temperature, humidity and dust, and supplied to the building. Later, the air is expelled through a chimney. The system produces 100% fresh air and maintains a healthy environment inside.

Speaking about the system, Kamal Singh, Infrastructure Advisor, NIIT University, says, “Air is sucked through a tower — that adds to the architectural signature of the design — and is released at the other end, which opens out into the building. Along the way, the temperature is brought down about 10-15 degrees.”

The passive solar control measures allow the buildings to be well-lit and free of dust, while the up-and-down ventila-tion through vertical shafts averts the need for windows for ventilation. Sky-lights and light shelves (horizontal light-reflecting overhangs placed above eye-level and with a high-reflectivity upper surface to bounce daylight onto the ceil-ing and deeper into a room) and sky-lights are used to conserve energy through day lighting. All buildings are oriented in a north-south direction so have minimal exposure to the hot west-ern sun. The use of glass on exteriors is limited and, whenever used, the glazing is shaded from the sun.

“The buildings, built with a high per-centage of recycled materials, are insu-lated from outside and detailed to avoid thermal bridges. They are designed to be cool and dust-free,”Singh elaborates.

Dig up the TunnelsAt TERI University, earth-air tunnels are employed to keep temperatures down in the hostel block. The orientation of U

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33June 2011 EDUTECH

Green Cooling CAMPUS

building blocks and spaces ensures glare-free daylight in regularly occupied areas. The east, west and south facades of the building have minimum glazing and the form of the building casts a shadow on the glazing, blocking direct sunlight. The use of insulating material on wal l s and roofs , and high-performance window glazing that minimises thermal gain, enhances energy efficiency. The lighting system is d e s i g n e d t o m i n i m i s e e n e r g y consumption and takes advantage of day lighting.

Rajiv Chhibber of TERI University says green design features contribute about 40% in energy savings compared to conventional buildings. He adds the rationale is that “the campus has been planned to provide a setting that enhanc-es learning and showcases the concept of modern green buildings.”

Wind Towers for Natural VentilationPassive cooling is also possible through the process of displacement ventilation, an idea that has been around for years. This process allows buildings to be ventilated by letting in cool air and letting out warm air. In practice, designers can provide open-ings at low levels to bring in cooler air and high openings (such as clerestory windows — windows that rise above adjoining rooflines) to let out the rising warm air, so as to create a natural flow of air.

The University of Jodhpur, also designed by Space Design Consultants, provides thermal comfort by using displacement ventilation to keep the rooms cool. Here, a wind tower with an evaporative cooling system and small exhaust ducts is used to bring cool breeze into all rooms of the building. Massive stone walls, made from locally procured stone, shade windows and insulate roofs, and also add a pleasant ambience in the peak of summer.

Sun BlockedAt NIFT, Hyderabad, architecture has been used innovatively to keep out hot air. The design is such that the central court remains shaded most of the time, making outdoor activity possible.

Blank walls lined with lockers run along the main internal circulation spine on the south-west side. The walls work as an insulating layer and keep solar radiation and heat out.

Sonali Rastogi, co-founder of award-winning architectural practice, Morpho-genesis, is responsible for the low-cost, environmentally sensitive campus, Pearl Academy of Fashion in Jaipur. After intensive solar and thermal analy-sis, the building was conceptualised based on the baoli, or stepwell, of ancient Indian architecture.

The structure is raised over the ground, creating a scooped out under-belly that forms the “sink” for the water body. Recycled water helps maintain the microclimate through evaporative cool-ing and reduces dependence on mechan-ical environmental control measures. “The building casts a long shadow on the water body, so it doesn’t heat up. To ensure that it’s sustainable, the water is recirculated. The structure is wrapped in a jali (screen) and water is dripped onto the jalis, bringing down the tempera-ture,” Rastogi explains.

Since this was a low-budget project, Ras-togi also turned to a cost-effective Rajast-hani insulating technique. “We put invert-ed matkas on the roof; this keeps the temperature down and reduces the need for air-conditioning significantly,” she says.

The passive environment design reportedly helps achieve temperatures of about 27˚C inside even when the tem-perature outside is touching 50˚C.

Solar heat and radiation are also absorbed through windows and roofs. Plantation cover and landscaping shading concepts help reduce the solar heat gain and bring down costs. Shading and evapo-transpiration (the process by which a plant actively moves and releas-es water vapour) reduce surrounding air temperatures by 5˚C to 6˚C. The tem-perature directly under trees could be as much as 15˚C cooler as cool air settles near the ground. Planting trees of appro-priate sizes, densities and shapes can help throw shade on windows and open-ings, blocking the sun’s rays. Adding perennials and vines that cluster on walls also helps.

Old is Cold TooNew campuses can plan to be green start-ing with the first building block itself, that is, at the design stage. But, for old cam-puses, designers need to take into account existing constraints and aim to maximise the energy efficiency of mechanical cool-ing systems and not just incorporate new concepts into the design. An open floor plan allows optimisation of passive solar cooling. Improvements to the building envelope — sunshading, insulation, ther-mal bridging and high-performance glass — can optimise the design.

Since the positioning of openings can’t be changed, experts suggest fitting win-dows with double-glass panes where the insulating air space between the panes reduces heat transfer. Placing direct shad-ing devices such as pergolas and solar

“Apart from deep shaded angled apertures in the wall... we decided on a north-south orientation of parallel bays for better air flow”—Architect B.V. Doshi, Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology


CAMPUS Green Cooling

Keep Your Cool• Dark coloured exteriors tend to absorb anywhere between 70% and 90%

of the sun’s radiant energy, leading to heat gain. Using light colours or reflective coatings on existing roofs can help minimise this

• Commonly used appliances such as computers, laptops, televisions, ovens, dishwashers and dryers are overlooked sources of interior heat gain. Compare appliances and choose energy-efficient appliances that generate less heat and use less energy

• Don’t forget that green building design is associated with factors that are positively and significantly correlated with increased productivity. A building that uses passive solar control measures is on an average 25% to 30% more energy efficient, has better lighting quality (more day lighting and better daylight harvesting) and improved ventilation

screens at appropriate places can also enhance energy efficiency. For shading roofs, one can use fixed shades of light-weight materials, movable shades of can-vas, or landscaping elements. However, experts say keeping windows shaded is more important since glass permits sun-light to enter the building but does not allow long-wave heat radiated by room sur-faces to escape. Deep overhangs or solar screens can be used to shield glazed areas from direct sun rays and avoid excessive heat gain. When it comes to sun control, low e-glazing can also help, especially on the western side of buildings.

The importance of landscape shading elements rises manifold in existing campuses — trees, vines and vegetation cast shade and reduce the effect of solar gain. Awnings can also reduce heat gain by as much as by 65% on windows with southern exposure and by 77% on those with western exposure.

Daylight harvesting, a lighting strategy designed to minimise energy consump-tion and lower bills, takes advantage of day lighting wherever available. Light shelves and skylights can help in this endeavour. Switching to energy-efficient compact fluorescents can also help lower temperature as about 80% of the energy consumed by incandescent lighting is wasted through heat.

Rastogi says, “If the basic orientation of the building vis-à-vis the sun is wrong, there’s not much that you can do about it. After all, any building that faces the west is a killer. Otherwise, one can adopt simple solutions like jalis, second skins and shades to bring down the tempera-ture.” She also advocates the use of water bodies to keep the atmosphere cool.

A Wise Investment Considerable R&D shows the cost of bu i ld ing green i s h igher than conventional building. The major cost contributors are energy-related systems: the building envelope, lighting, electrical and HVAC (heating, ventilating and air-conditioning). A study, Costing Green: A Comprehensive Cost Database and Budge t ing Me thodo l ogy , r evea l s integrating green features into a project early is critical. “The choices made during design ultimately determine whether a building can be sustainable, not the budget set,” says the report by Davis Langdon Adamson, a construction cost-planning company. Though initial costs may be higher than conventionally designed buildings, the savings — be it on energy, water, maintenance, operations or health costs — justify expenditure. The Costs and Financial Benefits of Green Buildings report by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative for the California Sustainable Building Ta s k Fo r c e s a y s , “ W h i l e t h e environmental and human health benefits of green building have been widely recognised...minimal increases in upfront costs of about 2% to support green design would, on an average, result in lifecycle savings of 20% of total construction costs — more than 10 times the initial investment.”

It is estimated that going green in India costs approximately 10% more. “But this incremental cost, when com-pared to the lifecycle cost of the building, is small. There are extensive savings when one looks at the lifecycle of the building,” Rastogi says.

“If the basic orientation of the building vis-à-vis the sun is wrong, there’s not much that you can do”

—Sonali Rastogi, Co-founder of award-winning

architectural practice, Morphogenesis, Delhi

Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/con-tent/newsletters


RADMINISTRATION VC-Appointment

State universities of Gujarat need

a facelift. The process

must start with the selection of

the right vice chancellors

BY K.M. JOSHI(Professor of Economics, Bhavnagar University)

37June 2011 EDUTECH

VC-Appointment ADMINISTRATION

RRight from the first commission on university education, the Radhakrishnan Commission (1948), to the Kothari Commis-sion (1964-66), Gnanam Com-

mission (1990) and Ramlal Parikh Commission (1993), all have been unani-mous in defining the role of the vice chancellor as central to the quality and relevance of universities. A leader who stands for the commitment of the university to scholarship and pursuit of truth, a bridge that yokes administra-tion to academic excellence, a visionary who shapes thousands of young lives and a pillar for nation building. A VC must be an individual with values, personality characteristics and integrity in addition to academic excellence and administrative experience. No doubt, in these times of moral bankruptcy such luminaries are hard to come by, yet these expectations indicate a stan-dard. Finding the right person to fit into the position is important, not only in the interests of the university, but also in the interest of the nation, as young India looks up to them to set the tone and tenor for their generation.

Power StrugglesThe issue is especially relevant when it comes to selecting Vice Chancellors at the grassroots level of state universities. Despite recommendations by various committees, the process has unfortunately not been streamlined effectively. Gujarat, too, is a state struggling with this issue. The search com-mittees set up for selecting candidates for the post of VC for around four Universities have, yet again, failed to nominate deserving names. The panels seem to have followed in the footsteps of their predecessors.

Politicisation, unionism and favouritism are the hallmarks of VC appoint-ments these days, leading to an infiltration of non-deserving persons as vice chancellors. As a result, former politicians, bureaucrats, industrialists and low profile academics find berths as captains of the education ship. More often than not, rules and quality parameters are flouted or twisted to suit the larger political purpose, thus compromising this sacred seat of higher learn-ing. As a corollary, the quality of higher education across many state universi-ties in India has become sadly compromised due to undue political influence. Though these VCs alone cannot be blamed for the steady deterioration of the university education system, to a large extent, it can be attributed to their

GUJARAT ISSUE

BHAVNAGAR University had two of its professors fasting unto death to protest the selection process for VC. The post has been lying vacant since November this year ANAND Agriculture University’s post for the VC was vacant for a year until A.M. Sheikh was appointed in April this year

questionable academic merit and purpose. The recent appointments of vice chancellors

across universities have led to quality corrosion in academia and proliferation of political group-ings. These politically aligned incumbents have encouraged malpractices and ushered substan-dard administration. It is a given that a person sans academic vision and insight will never be able to translate higher education objectives into achievables.

Locked in MediocrityThe vice chancellor is the principal academic and executive officer of the university. Finding a per-son of calibre to fill this role is the task of the search committee set up for this purpose. This body recommends three names for the post. But the foremost question here is: Are the members of the search committee themselves qualified to select and recommend persons for a post that requires such high distinction?

ADMINISTRATION VC-Appointment


While we all know that the VC is the “keeper of the university’s conscience (Radhakrishnan Commission — 1948: 422)” and, to quote the Kothari Com-mission Report, “one who stands for the commitment of the university to scholarship and pursuit of truth”, there is a cloud over the qualification and competence of search committee members whose mandate is to select suit-able candidates for this high office.

Theoretically, the selection committee must have persons of eminence in the sphere of education on board, nominated by various concerned authori-ties. In reality, such scholars of repute are in a minority or totally absent from the body. In several cases, even the chairman of the committee was found to be below the rank of a professor and without a sound academic background.

There have also been instances where senior professors were inducted as members of the committee under a chairman who was of a lower rank – against university protocol. Hence, the mission to appoint a visionary as the vice chancellor fails largely because of the incompetence and under-qualifica-tion of the search committee to identify and recommend one.

This brings us to the competent authorities involved in electing, selecting, nominating and appointing the search committee members. It must be made

process. The stakeholders can then seek information about the applications received by the panel and the reasons for recommending or not recommending the names of specific candidates for the post. This would be the most apposite and effective step towards higher education governance.

On the other hand, accountability of the VC office would also yield quality improvements. The decisions taken by him at the micro platform, i.e., at the university level, and also at the macro or state level, would then be available for scrutiny. Stakeholders can then know if the VCs are par-ticipating in and working towards agendas for the development of higher education through a Joint Board of Vice Chancellors’ Committee (JBVC).

As of now, we have no clue to the number, if any, of academic discussions that have taken place in the JBVC meetings. We do not even know if there are any records of work initiated and implemented.

Required — a Visionary VCThe concerns expressed above strengthen the conviction that appointing eminent scholars as leaders of universities will lead to a definite improvement in the educational firmament with genuine academic issues being addressed in timely and effective ways at correct forums and platforms.

The failure to nip the trend of non-academics taking over the reins of university administration will definitely push state universities into sub-standard benchmarking in terms of quality in both research and teaching programmes. The gap between private universities and state universities will also widen further. Currently, a majority of the state universities are passing through both financial and quality crises and negligence in the appointment of vice chancellors will have multi-ple negative spillover effects.

The controversial Common Universities Act, if implemented in consultation and as per the sug-gestions of the various stakeholders, should also focus on the qualifications of the VC.

While moving towards the knowledge-driven economy objective, Gujarat State must ensure a competitive advantage for its higher education in terms of the nature of programmes offered along with research output. A process that begins with the appointment of the vice chancellor — with vision, mission and qualification.

“A search committee must fix minimum eligibility criteria for the post of VC“

incumbent upon these bodies to nominate only distinguished scholars and academicians to the committee.

Quality needs CalibrationThe search committee must fix minimum eligibility criteria for the post of a VC. The desirability of a candidate may be measured by the excellence of research and publications of the person. Only those academicians who are reputed scholars — as is manifest from international and national awards, fellowships, citations received, quality publications, research projects, consul-tancy and recognition by academic bodies — should be considered a right fit for the leadership position. The parameters for qualification have been addressed well by different commissions including the National Knowledge Commission and University Grants Commission Pay Review Committee.

The Office of the Chancellor and the Ministry of Higher Education can work together to fix a minimum quality benchmark or yardstick for candidacy for the post of VC. Another measure that would yield positive results is insti-tuting a Vice-Chancellor Fitness Index based on academic and administrative variables, for judging a candidate.

RIT to the RescueFixing accountability on the search committee would also be a move in the right direction. For this, the functioning of the search committee must be brought under the purview of the Right to Information Act. This would lead to greater accountability of the search team and transparency in the selection


THOMAS S. ROBERTSON

EDUCATION: BA in Business from Wayne State University MA and PhD in Marketing from Northwestern University

CURRENT ENGAGEMENT:• Dean of the Wharton School • Reliance Professor of

Management and Private Enterprise at the University of Pennsylvania

“Wharton has three priorities: innovation, global presence and social impact”

MISSION INDIA The Wharton

Way EDU: Why did you decide to come to India?Thomas S. Robertson: We are signing an MoU with the Indian School of Business (ISB), Mohali. We will be working with them, and the Max Group, on designing a healthcare management course. Wharton is not new to India. We have been associated with the ISB Hyderabad right from its inception with our faculty assisting in teaching, curriculum and faculty management.

What will be Wharton’s role in the design of the curriculum? Healthcare management is one of the 11 specialisations offered at

Wharton. We have a dedicated faculty for the course. About 10% of our MBAs graduate with a major in healthcare management. Healthcare is an important part of the US economy. In the near future India, too, will demand sophisticated management in healthcare enterprises. In both countries, hospitals have been traditionally managed by physicians. While physicians may be good for medical reasons, they are not always the best administrators. I think we have a major role to play in making medical organisations more efficient. We have courses designed to provide professional expertise in healthcare management that we hope to bring to India. I know much of it needs to be customised, but we hope to learn in the process. Our experience with the Indian healthcare system can perhaps be used to improve US healthcare. We recently offered a course at ISB Hyderabad for students

majoring in healthcare. We had 30 students from Wharton and 20 from ISB take it up.

Wharton recently reviewed its MBA curriculum and announced some significant changes. Why?

One reason for the changes introduced was that the curriculum had not been revised in a number of years, though other courses were updated regu-larly. We reviewed the curriculum, admissions process, career management and the whole cul-ture of the MBA programme. This was an exten-sive exercise. There were about 4,000 interactions, including interviews and questionnaires, and stu-dent, alumni, CEO and recruiter surveys, to understand what the curriculum should be.

As the Dean what do you aspire to accomplish in the next five years?

Wharton has three priorities: innovation, global presence and social impact. We want to be a glob- S

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PAU

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Thomas S. Robertson, Dean, Wharton School of Business,

discusses his India plans with EDU. For now, the focus is on making

healthcare management in India a professionally managed enterprise

BY R. GIRIDHAR

41June 2011 EDUTECH

Thomas S. Robertson DIALOGUE

DIALOGUE Thomas S. Robertson

al B-school. So, we are focused on hiring faculty from around the world and inter-nationalising the curriculum. The two dominant economies in the world are India and China. So, we should be well-represented in both. We must also re-invent constantly.

In education, technology is very impor-tant. Social media, IT, simulations and online media are all part of a new educa-tional paradigm. Instilling an innovative temperament within the school is impor-tant. It is important for our students to pos-sess a scientific temperament. Then they will be willing to move in new directions.

Our third thrust area is social impact. B-schools have to be a force for good in the universe. By this, we don’t mean that all students will work only for non-prof-its. But, we do hope that they will be managers with a social conscience.

What is the Business Institute for Global Good at Wharton?

The three pillars of Wharton — i.e., global impact, innovation and social impact — are institutionalised within the school. We have vice deans dedicated to each. For social impact, we not only have a vice dean, but also a managing director. Our students and faculty work on projects for the community and also a wider audi-ence. One of our projects is in partnership

Do you see any potential for Wharton to step into executive and continuing education in India?

Yes, that is a possibility. We have done a little at ISB. If we had a more fixed presence in India, we could possibly do more in the field of executive education or lifelong edu-cation for our alumni who are located here.

There’s one thing which you’ve been keen on — the diffusion of innovation. Why?

It simply means how you disseminate information. Usually, what you’re trying to do is disseminate it quickly. Most firms, when they have innovated some-thing, are interested in getting it into the market fast. But how do you get custom-ers to adopt it quickly?

A lot of my research over the years has been focused on that. In running a B-school what matters is how I champi-on innovation and make sure that we have the leading edge.

I must also ensure that organisations accept our innovations and are willing to move in a new direction. You have to work on them to convince them why it is better to be ahead.

with Goldman Sachs which aims to edu-cate 10,000 women and develop entrepre-neurship skills among them.

You’ve been an advocate of R&D. Why is R&D important?

We are in this business for some basic purposes: to create new knowl-edge, educate future practitioners and disseminate knowledge to existing prac-titioners. If we do not create new knowl-edge, who else will do it? Half of what we do is creating new knowledge that improves businesses and makes gov-ernments efficient. This results in enhanced economic and social welfare. You’re not a university if you are not creating new knowledge. We are judged by the knowledge that we create and ideas we disseminate.

Do you see Wharton setting up a campus in India?

It is a distinct possibility. We may come with a stronger Wharton presence in India, but not to offer degree pro-grammes. We would rather communi-cate knowledge to the Indian market. For example, we have the “Knowledge at Wharton” initiative with 160,000 sub-scribers. We are already developing India-specific content and disseminating it on the internet.

I think we have a major role to play in making medical organisations more efficient



TECHNOLOGY Cloud Computing


CloudMoving

to the

Shifting to technologies based on the internet is cost-effective, simple and flexible. Institutions should make the move before adoption spikes in two to five years

45June 2011 EDUTECH

ture or applications that demand a lot of computing power. Organisations can work with their existing infrastructure and pay a service provider for the use of hardware and software.

The idea of cloud computing is that you can reduce costs, particularly on infrastructure management, which is part of the service provider’s responsibil-ity. The model also benefits the service providers themselves, because they can leverage economies of scale, hosting sev-eral customers on the same infrastruc-ture and cutting down on costs.

There is considerable debate on the risk involved in moving applications to the cloud. Experts say the risk is not sig-nificantly greater than that in any IT undertaking and in any case, there are available methodologies to reduce it even further. A careful selection of func-tions to shift to the cloud also helps min-imise threats to data security.

Deployment ModelsCloud services can be based on a public, private or community model, depending upon the customer’s needs.

“Public clouds” mean that anyone can access the provided services over the internet. A private cloud is set up on a proprietary network and is intended to serve a customer organisation or institu-tion. Under this model, the customer doesn’t benefit from lowered costs. But like all clouds, private clouds offer other advantages, which include scalability and easier recovery from failure.

A “community cloud” is when a group of organisations in the same domain or with common concerns, sets up a cloud infrastructure to be used by all of them. They share costs and the benefits of using cloud resources.

Service ModelsThe delivery of services to customers also follows different models. These include Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

The IaaS model gives you access to an infrastructure. This frees the customer from having to buy the servers or set up data centres and network equipment. The customer pays based on the extent and amount of resources used.

The PaaS model gives you access to a specific platform or solution stack, with-out having to buy the hardware or soft-ware required.

The SaaS model entails providing soft-ware over the internet. Applications designed for the cloud enable you to carry out tasks using a standard web browser, without having to buy the soft-ware or worry about licensing.

Cheap, Simple, FlexibleWorking with cloud services gives you several advantages, one of which is cost savings. All that a customer needs is com-puters with web browsers — no invest-ment in specialised or dedicated infra-structure is involved. “On the cloud, you don’t have to worry about that kind of a capex. You build as you go along and wait for the results before you enhance your infrastructure,” says Nitin Khanapurkar,

Cloud Computing TECHNOLOGYP

C A

NO

OP

Definitions of cloud computing often are cloudy. Vasude-va Varma, Associ-ate Professor of IIIT Hyderabad, explains the con-

cept more clearly than most: “Cloud com-puting is an enabler that provides elastic (infinitely scalable) computing and stor-age, without the need to buy any comput-ing infrastructure. It is just the same as using electricity as a utility, whenever we need it and however much we need it, and paying for what we use. That is why it is also known as utility computing.”

Cloud computing makes IT services, both basic and complex, available on the internet. It does so by using various models. Cloud services can be delivered using standard infrastructure, which means there is no need to invest large sums of money on in-house infrastruc-



BUSINESS VIABILITYPedigree: Brand visibility of cloud service provider, entrepreneur track record, management, strategic investors or VCs

Financials: Balance sheet, cash flows, VC funding rounds, equity structure

Commitment level: Capex committed to cloud per se, R&D or innovation budget

Roadmap: Expansion plans announced publicly and commitment to growth

Industry rankings: Assessments from third party analysts like Gartner, Yankee and IDC

CSP(CLOUD SERVICE PROVIDER)

SELECTOR

SEVEN-STEP

Collated by Sameer Kulkarni, Head—IT Automation Architecture (Data Center Business), Reliance Communications

STRATEGIC CAPABILITIESManpower: Quality of manpower, average industry experience, qualifications, certifications, attrition rate

Partnerships and tie-ups: Published track record of partnerships (the more the better)

Forums: Forums hosted, steered, sponsored

Patents filed: (if any)

PORTFOLIO AND PRICINGPortfolio: Breadth and depth of portfolio offerings, medium to long-term roadmap

Pricing flexibility: Maturity and flexibility of the pricing model and up sell model

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Vasudeva Varma, Associate Professor, IIIT Hyderabad, explains why cloud computing is also known as ‘utility computing’.

Is your institution using cloud computing? At IIIT Hyderabad, laboratories are using a cloud

computing paradigm. Search and Information Extraction Lab (SIEL) was the first to adopt the method for research. It is now being used at the

Centre for Data Engineering, Machine Translation Lab of Language Technologies Research Centre, Centre for IT in Agriculture and Centre for Visual Information Technologies, among others.

How has using cloud services helped you? It has benefited us in several ways. First, it reduces cycle time for research

experiments. Earlier we used to run experiments for weeks and often miss deadlines for publications, because the experiments were not complete. Now, we are able to not only complete experiments on time, but conduct several additional experiments at the same time. This has resulted in an increased number of publications.

We are now investing less in buying individual workstations. Regular laptops are being used to connect to the cloud, and researchers and students are able to work from anywhere with ease. We are also creating better infrastructure by adding more machines to the cloud. That should help us further reduce the budget.

Cloud Equals Low-cost and High Access

Executive Director, Advisory Services, KPMG India. “You only pay for what you use, and there is no maintenance cost.”

Also, you save on resources to manage your infrastructure. You may need to deploy staff to manage the service pro-vider, but that is about all. Your regular IT staff can take care of the rest. “With the cloud coming in, technology is no more a challenge,” says Khanapurkar.

Cloud services are flexible and scalable. If there are some services that you need today but want to give up tomorrow, the cloud ensures that you do not end up with under-utilised IT infrastructure later. You can ask your vendor to stop giving you those services. If you unexpectedly need a large amount of resources or storage, the cloud can make those available to you, without the prob lem of hav ing to buy the infrastructure, set it up, or install the required software.

Besides all that, the cloud is also a greener option than running and maintaining proprietary hardware and software. A study by Microsoft , Accenture and WSP titled Cloud Computing and Sustainability, examined the environmental impact of running proprietary hardware and software

Cloud Computing TECHNOLOGY

47June 2011 EDUTECH

OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCEPortal experience: Portal of a company says a lot about it (how rich, contemporary and up to date?)

Web enablement: Degree of sophistication in web enablement of customer operations

Customer empowerment: Extent of “self-care” automation of customer and service life cycle management

Real time visibility: Real time reporting, application visibility, topology, dependency maps

Notification & escalation process: Means, processes and sophistication

Disaster recovery: Architecture, tools and readiness

TECHNOLOGY ARCHITECTUREChoice of platforms: Choice of virtualisation platforms, servers, OS, ISVs

Ecosystem: Extent of vendor neutrality, migration, commitment to open source option

Extensibility: How seamlessly extensible (on-tap available) is the computer, storage and network?

SLAs AND CONTRACTSMeasurements: How transparent is the measurement and reporting, and is it automated?

Enforceability: Contractual terms and obligations to the SLAs

SECURITY AND LAWPrivacy policy: Stated privacy policy and enforceability

Jurisdiction: In which country is the CSP located and covered by what jurisdiction?

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versus running the same applications with cloud services. They found that moving to the c loud can he lp organisations reduce 90% of their energy consumption. This however, is not the case with private clouds, where a closed group uses the infrastructure.

Security ConcernsLack of standards and clearly defined service level agreements (SLAs) in the industry occasionally cause ambiguity, especially for those inexperienced in working with cloud services.

Providers should be evaluated and tested and strict controls must be put into all contracts, to ensure that they don’t become lax with your data. Ownership of data and responsibilities must be clear from the start. Users often complain about provider lock-in. Many providers use proprietary formats that make it difficult to migrate data from one platform to another, or access data via other applications. So, it is important to examine your migration, support and future options thoroughly.

Cloud-based Learning Many people believe that cloud-based learning can level the playing field for

students who are forced to make do without a proper education. Khanapur-kar says, “The best professor in Delhi, for example, is available only to a select community. Now, using the cloud, we can digitise lectures and put them on the web. Eventually the cyber café will see a revival, especially in the ‘B’ and ‘C’ class cities, for people who may not be able to afford personalised teach-ing. They can start facilities where stu-dents just come and attend a lecture broadcast online.”

At specialised institutes which need dedicated IT labs and have high-perfor-mance computing requirements, mov-ing to the cloud can help simplify the process and make education available to students. Teachers and staff don’t have to worry about managing the network, but can focus on helping students derive the maximum value from resources. Upgrades are also easier.

Sharing information is, too, easier on the cloud. Students or professors who are unable to attend class physically can access lectures, and collaborate with other students from other places.

The cloud enables better learning because of the digital media that can be used to teach. Rich content that would

otherwise be difficult to access, can be used to enrich the learning experience. Khanapurkar says, “This kind of content will aid retention and make the learning last.” For example, medical students may be able to see a video that explains the workings of the heart.

“Eventually you will see an ecosystem where the curriculum will be very inter-active. Video streaming will enable stu-dents to take lectures in whichever way they want and on whatever topic they choose,” says Khanapurkar. “With media getting more interactive on smartphones and tablets, this content will no longer be limited to only computers.”

Challenges in AdoptionCloud adoption in the education sector in India is far from widespread. According to Vasudeva Varma, the biggest factor holding Indian institutes back is lack of awareness. When more people are aware of the benefits, adoption will go up significantly. “The second challenge is the lack of migration tools and techniques. If you are using conventional computational paradigms and would like to shift to the cloud paradigm, you need the help of migration tools,” Professor Varma adds.



“The third challenge is the unsuitability of the cloud paradigm for specific research areas. If your computing needs cannot be satisfied by the cloud paradigm naturally, it can work as a de-motivating factor, because you will need to work on dividing your tasks to suit this new paradigm,” he says.

According to Khanapurkar, “One of the reasons for slow adoption in India is the multiple price point. Then, computer and internet penetration is another factor that has a major impact. Another factor is of course the cultural challenges in adop-tion. But in three to five years, we will see exponential growth in this sector.”

Choosing Right The model you adopt should be tailor-made to suit requirements. “It depends on the purpose: for once-a-year require-ments (such as admissions or entrance tests), it may be more economical to use a public cloud setup. If your university is research-focused, calling for large-scale computing everyday, it would be better to set up a central cloud infrastructure,” says Professor Varma.

Before moving to the cloud, you should evaluate which functions to take to the cloud. It may be a good idea to start small and move functions gradually. Khanapur-kar says, “It may help institutions to first do a prototype or a group of concepts within the university or the college. They can create some kind of content which is used only by their internal students, and

once they are confident that it is working and is interesting enough for the student community to take it, they may want to open it up to the larger community.”

It may also make sense to try out cloud applications as an add-on instead of a replacement for your typical desktop applications. Many institutes have already adopted e-mail on cloud services. Other applications that can easily be moved to the cloud include knowledge manage-ment, collaboration (e-mail, chat, etc), portals, content management, informa-tion management (for example, digitisa-tion, record management, storage servic-es, etc), among several others.

According to Vasudeva Varma, there are many options. You can set up department or research lab-level clouds to address the problem of under-utilisation of existing computing infrastructure. You can set up central (institute or university-level) cloud facilities for running large jobs. You can use special purpose cloud infrastructure that is set up for education or research purposes (such as the Academic Cloud Computing Initiative, which is an IBM-Google-UW partnership, and the Open Cirrus project by HP, Yahoo, Intel and others). You will need to make special arrangements to avail of these facili-ties. Finally, you can also use public clouds such as Amazon Web Services.

Also consider your future needs. Are you planning to add new courses and learning formats which may need a scale-

“Institutions will have to generate a roadmap for cloud computing and decide what’s their ultimate vision, because that will drive their investment” —Nitin KhanapurkarExecutive Director, Advisory Services, KPMG India

up? Make sure you have the right infra-structure, and a provider who will be able to deliver the services as you need them. Bandwidth, too, has to be considered. Once you have decided on the model, there are other things to be worked out, such as content and pricing. “First, the institutions will have to generate a road-map for cloud computing and decide what is their ultimate vision, because that will drive their investment into the cloud,” says Khanapurkar. “Then they also need to work hard on the content, because if the content is not of high qual-ity, nobody will want to take up your courses. The third thing is the pricing.”

He adds, “In the future, I won’t be surprised if a few colleges come together and actually widen their network — coming in sort of as one institute —because they see much bigger advantage in doing that rather than competing with each other, because the physical space will no longer be the key USP.”

It might take a while for people’s mind-sets to change, for data security and privacy issues to be effectively addressed, and for various institutions to evolve the kind of public-private partnerships and collabora-tive models that will enable cloud-based education to take off in India. But there can be no doubt that clouds are here to stay.



PROFILE Sudhir Kumar Jain

Sudhir K. Jain was 12 when he saw the movie Satyakam. The intense film about the struggle of an upright young civil engineer, Satyapriya, with a corrupt system in post-Independence India, left a deep mark on young Sudhir. As a student of Islamia College in Etawah, Uttar Pradesh, Jain’s class teacher, Azmi, a staunch idealist, further instilled the ideals of truth, conviction and self-respect in him. Reading Gandhi’s My Experiments with Truth at the age of 13, cemented it. Upon joining IIT Gandhinagar (IIT GN) as its founder-

director, Jain gifted this book to each student of the 2009 batch. Jain’s life has been guided by Gandhi’s beliefs. “When I was interviewed for the post

of director for the new IITs, I made it clear that I am a candidate only for IIT Gandhi-nagar. I knew the chances of building a world-class institute were higher here. I was honest with myself and the interview panel,” is Jain’s frank admission. No task is taboo at IIT GN as long as it helps bring in world-class standards. They had to have a common hostel for girls and boys and call in sex-education counsellors. “We do not shy away from doing either unpleasant or difficult things, if it is important,” asserts Jain.

My Tryst with TruthProfessor Sudhir Jain, Director IIT Gandhinagar, is

honest to a fault. Like Mahatma Gandhi,

who influenced his formative years, he

also believes in bold experiments

BY SMITA POLITE

FACT FILE

NAME: Sudhir Kumar Jain

CURRENT ENGAGEMENT: Director, Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar

THINGS HE LIKES:BOOK: My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi & How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (the first English book he read) QUOTE: “Reasons don’t count, results do”PLACE: Caltech campus (makes him nostalgic)FOOD: All manners of vegetarian foodPASTIME: ReadingMOVIES: Satyakam, AnandMUSIC OR POETRY: Urdu poetry, though he admits he may not understand it wellHIS LITTLE SECRET: Can cook. Is proud of the way he can chop onions A

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51June 2011 EDUTECH

Sudhir Kumar Jain PROFILE

Bold ExperimentsJain has often been warned that his experiments may land him in trouble. But the thrill of building something new is his motivation. “Seeing my ideas take shape gives me immense energy. I feel fresh every morning, even if I have slept just for a couple of hours,” he says.

Mundane details like quality mess food, often ignored or left to hostel administra-tion, are of special concern to this direc-tor. A nutritionist works along with the students to ensure that the right mix of healthy yet tasty meals are served at the mess tables. “Come and have lunch with us, you will probably not find better food in any other IIT,” Jain claims proudly.

Sports is another area of interest to Jain, himself denied the opportunity in school. The schools he attended did not even have mats to sit on and students carried their own gunny sacks. While appearing for Class XII exams in Bijnor, Jain decided to sit for IIT entrance tests. In the 10-day gap between his school exams and IIT entrance, he memorised a booklet of Hindi-to-Eng-lish translations of scientific terms. There were questions he could not understand and left unanswered, yet he made it with an all India rank of 69. Jain wanted to be a civil engineer, but stories of corruption in the field deterred him. It was a meeting with the upright Roorkee professor of civil engi-neering, O.P. Jain, that dispelled his doubts. “I was sure then that I wanted to attend Roorkee University and become a professor of civil engineering too,” says Jain. Satyakam was still fresh in his mind.

Jain visited Professor Jain once again when in fourth year. This time it led him to apply for a PhD programme in the US. “I applied to Caltech because that was the only university requiring no application fee. The next few days passed like a dream, running around for my passport and tick-ets. I was still weak in English, but under-stood one word clearly — Congratula-tions,” reminisces Jain. Caltech campus remains among Jain’s favourite places. It played a key role in building his confi-dence and taught him to ensure quality in all endeavours. However, he yearned to return to India to pursue his dream of becoming a professor. Jain had planned to return to his alma mater, Roorkee Univer-

sity, however, he had offers from many institutes and decided to explore before settling on one. He joined IIT Kanpur for its bonhomie. A professor at 24, Jain’s stu-dents were almost his age, some older. But he was in the right place, for it fanned his passion to research earthquakes.

In 1988, when a devastating earth-quake struck Bihar, Jain with two of his students boarded an Ambassador car, and travelled non-stop for 72 hours, cov-ering more than seven districts, sleeping barely 4-5 hours. It struck him then that his research had to be practical and peo-ple-oriented. It led him to design codes for earthquake-resistant buildings that are being used all over India today.

appointed head of the department and then Dean of Resource Planning. In May 2008, when the ministry announced institution of new IITs, all three directors whom Jain had worked with and the then chairman, sent him separate e-mails to propose his name.

Jain was in a dilemma. On the one hand, he was not sure if starting new IITs was such a good idea, when the older ones were stretched for resources. On the other hand, this was an opportunity to see all his dreams take shape. It took him one month to clear his doubts. He turned to friends like Dheeraj Sanghi and Ajit Gill for advice and was convinced. “Earlier, I had mentors like Azmi O.P. Jain, N.C. Nigam, and

IIT Kanpur was productive for Sudhir on other fronts too. He met his soul-mate Abhilasha, currently a professor of English at a Kanpur college. His son and daughter are studying in the US. Though his family is in four different geogra-phies, Jain would not have it any other way. “I did not expect my wife to relocate. It has not been easy for my family, but you have to make certain adjustments to chase your dreams,” he admits.

People’s ProfessorBack from a sabbatical at Michigan and planning to write a book, Jain was caught off-guard when called to take on admin-istrative work by the then Director, Dr R.C. Malhotra. He put his plans on hold and headed placements. One year on, after his experience with students, he was ready to take on more. He was later

George Housner. Now I find inspiration in younger people, like Dheeraj,” he says.Jain and Sanghi go a long way back to his IIT Kanpur days. Jain makes friends for life. All his friends have been receiving New Year cards unfailingly for the past 30 years. “I look for people and then look for the right jobs for them. If I empower people, they deliver much more than they believed they were capable of,” says Jain, explaining his people-oriented approach to life and work.

“I have been lucky to have lived life on my own terms and still be honest to my ideals,” states the upright professor. Jain has scripted his own Satyakam without the sad ending, thanks to his faith in human values.

“I have been lucky to have lived life

on my own terms and still be honest

to my ideals”


PERSPECTIVEINSIDE

F R O M O F H I G H E R E D U C A T I O N

THE GLOBAL


54 | Plagiarism Sleuths Undo Thesis

56 | UK’s Private Schools to Learn from US mistakes

More and more colleges, universities are considering adding video-making to their list of core skills BY JEFFREY R. YOUNG

Across Classes, Videos Make the Grade

Film students aren’t the only ones producing videos for homework these days. Professors teaching courses in writing, geology, forensics, sociology, anthropology, foreign languages and many other disciplines now assign video projects, pushing

students to make arguments formatted for the YouTube age.So far the trend exists mainly among tech-savvy professors,

though in some cases students asked to write traditional papers are lobbying to turn in video essays instead.

Now a few colleges and universities are considering adding video-making to a list of core skills required for graduation. Recording may take its place among the age-old R’s of educa-tion: reading, writing, and ‘rithmatic.

I found that the University of Southern California is one insti-tution pondering camera-happy measures.

“We want all of our students that graduate from USC to have a signature experience that includes multimedia,” says Susan E. Metros, associate vice provost and associate CIO for technology-enhanced learning. The goal, she argues, is to prepare students for today’s highly visual communication landscape, and to push them to think more critically about the videos they consume.

However, Metros also told me that the university has yet to figure out exactly how to do this. “We want it to be campuswide, and we want it to be something that is part of the curriculum, but we don’t know how yet.” Among the options being dis-cussed: Adding a required course in which students make digi-tal videos; or asking all undergraduates to complete a capstone multimedia project. B

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GLOBAL.CHRONICLE.COM

53June 2011 EDUTECH

Sign up for a free weekly electronic newsletter from The

Chronicle of Higher Education at Chronicle.Com/Globalnewsletter

The Chronicle of Higher Education is a US-based company with a weekly newspaper and a website updated daily, at Global.Chronicle.com, that cover all aspects of university life. With over 90 writers, editors, and correspondents stationed around the globe, The Chronicle provides

timely news and analysis of academ-ic ideas, developments and trends.

“It used to be that ‘multimedia literacy’ meant that you just needed to be able to understand graphics or images,” Metros said. “Now there’s a sea change, and it means you have to be able to actually make them.”

Tools to produce videos now travel in almost every student’s backpack. More than 89% of students at four-year colleges own laptops, according to the latest data from Student Monitor, and today most laptops come equipped with a built-in web camera and easy-to-use video-editing software. And the latest smartphones feature cameras and video-editing software as well. About once a month, my sister-in-law e-mails me videos from her iPhone4 of my niece and nephew goofing around.

“The creation of video and the publishing of video is getting to the point where it’s almost as easy as creating a written assignment,” says Kyle D. Bowen, Purdue University’s director of informatics. And he’s trying to make it even easier: He recently helped design an iPhone app to let students submit video assignments to their professors.

Professors who have assigned videos say that students are enthusiastic — but that though they may fancy themselves young Steven Spielbergs, they often turn in schlocky, B-movie fare. And even professors are still trying to figure out what makes a good academic argument in video form.

Movies About IssuesMichael Fosmire, associate professor of library science at Pur-due University, recently started assigning video homework for a survey course he helps teach called “Great Issues in Science and Society,” a required course for science majors.

The 80 students in the class divide up in groups of four to write a white paper proposing policy on a scientific issue, such as supporting wind energy. Then they must produce a “persua-sive yet accurate” short video to build momentum for their policy, says Fosmire.

The professor says he has been surprised by how much time and energy the students invest in the videos, which have includ-ed mock newscasts and send-ups of popular sitcoms.

Several other courses at Purdue ask stu-dents to shoot and edit video as well, includ-ing a forensics course and — this one is a natural — a course on American Sign Lan-guage. A distance-education course in public speaking requires students to not only film themselves giving a talk, but to recruit a small audience to watch them. As Bowen put it, “You can’t do public speaking if you’re not speaking publicly.”

There are some drawbacks, though. Many professors do not feel comfortable making vid-eos, much less grading student footage. And students often focus on adding glitzy effects rather than doing research and crafting an argu-ment, says Elizabeth Losh, director of academic programmes for the Culture, Art, and Technol-ogy programme at the University of California at San Diego, who has assigned videos for years in her media-studies courses.

Many students think “all they need is something that’s got some visual sizzle, and they don’t need to address the kinds of research objectives that you might want them to address,” she says.

At USC, officials have set up a centre where non-film majors can go to get help crafting videos for classes. It’s called the Institute for Multimedia Literacy. Among recent projects: a geology class that asked students to make short documentaries instead of writing term papers.

Visual CompetencyTo Holly Willis, director of academic programmes for the centre, video is only one aspect of what she considers multimedia literacy, which can also include other forms of digital communication, including audio and interactive presentations. “For us, it’s really being able to communicate effectively in a networked culture,” she says.

Some colleges, including the University of Cincinnati, have revised their statements of “general education core competencies” to include “oral and visual communication” in addition to writing skills. Video assignments are one way to achieve that goal.

Librarians are also stepping in to define what they call “visual literacy.” The Association of College and Research Libraries recently drafted visual-literacy standards, the first time the group has issued such guidelines.

They include a call to encourage students to “design and create meaningful images and visual media.”

Even when colleges aren’t asking for videos, students are div-ing in on their own. One self-taught student video blogger from Villanova University, for instance, has scored 50 million views of her playful videos on Japanese culture. Perhaps professors can help make those homemade videos better.

More than 89% of students at colleges own laptops says data from Student Monitor Subscribe to a free weekly electronic newsletter from the Chronicle of

Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/globalnewsletter

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


The bad news keeps coming for the disgraced former German defence minister Karl-Theodor zu Gutten-berg, a once-rising star in

his country’s conservative party. The University of Bayreuth published the full report of its investigation into plagiarism in his 2006 doctoral dissertation in law.

The university’s assessment, which Guttenberg had initially sought to prevent from being made public, was unsparing: Not only was most of his dissertation plagiarised from a range of sources, including newspapers, journals, and the official research service for German parliamentarians, which lawmakers are forbidden to use for personal purposes, but even if the work had been Guttenberg’s, it would not have merited the summa cum laude it was originally awarded.

The revelations of how extensively Guttenberg had plagiarised came as no surprise to one group of people: an online community of plagiarism detectors that formed since allegations against him came to light.

That loose band of academic vigilantes helped to compile and disseminate the information that eventually brought about Guttenberg’s downfall. Its mem-bers have since set their sights on other high-profile figures, and, though they do not work directly with universities, their online sleuthing is having an impact.

Also, the University of Konstanz announced that it had stripped Veronica Sass, the daughter of another leading conservative politician, of her law doctor-ate. Another politician, Silvana Koch-Mehrin, whose doctoral dissertation is under investigation by the University of Heidelberg, stepped down on Wednes-day from her posts as a vice president of the European Parliament and the board of her political party.

Part of the explanation for the apparent proliferation of plagiarism among politicians is the prevalence of doctoral degrees among figures outside of academe. Many German politicians and business leaders have doctoral titles and have few qualms about using them, even if they never set foot on a university B

Y P

HO

TS

.CO

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Participants of an online chat forum dissect former German defence minister’s thesis, page by page, and assign a bar-code indicating plagiarism on each page BY AISHA LABI

Plagiarism Sleuths Undo German Minister’s Thesis

campus after they earn their degrees.“Everybody has their name on their

door in bronze and wants to have their doctoral title there, too; that’s really important,” said Debora Weber-Wulff, a professor of media and computing at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin who has been active in the recent online plagiarism-detecting movement. The attitude toward academic titles, she said, has much to do with the traditional German reverence of learning. “Someone who has a doctorate is highly respected,” she said.

Online TeamworkGuttenberg was hardly the only German politician to proudly affix “Dr” to his name, but he was the first to be subject-


55June 2011 EDUTECH

ed to the forensic scrutiny of an online examination of his academic bona fides.

The allegations against him first came to light in February, when a law professor at the University of Bremen raised quest ions about the minis ter’s dissertation in a newspaper article. Events snowballed from there, said Tim Bartel, who works as country manager in Germany for Wikia, a for-profit sister company of the Wikimedia Foundation, and an online community dedicated to examining Guttenberg’s thesis soon took shape.

A handful of bloggers began looking into Guttenberg’s dissertation and post-ing their findings in a variety of online forums. As their output grew, it became clear that they would need a more hospi-table venue than so many disparate sites or even the Google document that had been created, which allowed access to only about 100 people. The original cre-ator of the site where they ended up col-laborating, GuttenPlag Wiki, was a doc-toral candidate with a background in online gaming, through which he was familiar with the collaborative wikia for-mat, said Bartel.

Like many who have been active in the online plagiarism-hunting effort, that person, who goes by the handle PlagDoc, prefers to remain pseudonymous.

At the start, said Bartel, he and PlagDoc were the only two GuttenPlag participants. By the end of the site’s first day in operation, about 20 people were active online. “It’s pretty hard to say the exact number of people that are involved,” said Bartel. Because there is no requirement for participants to sign

up, some flit in and out of the forum while others are active on a regular basis.

“Some people don’t come back, some people just sign in to fix a typo, some people join every day and work for sev-eral hours.”

Max Ruppert, a doctoral candidate in journalism studies at the Technical Uni-versity of Dortmund, and another doctoral candidate conducted an online survey of GuttenPlag participants during what Ruppert describes as its “hot phase,” when thousands were logging in each day. The results allowed them to form a profile of who was active on the site.

They identified a “hard core” of 140 par-t icipants who were coming regularly to the site and taking the ini-tiative in leading and managing online tasks. The successor site that has continued to investigate other allegations of plagiarism, Vroni-Plag Wiki, has many of the same active users, said Bartel.

Color-coding CopyingOrganising online work was a challenge, especially since at the outset there was no real-time communication. Soon after, an online chat forum was set up. It was draw-ing around 100 active users at a time, and participants were then able to make sure there was little overlap as they dissected Guttenberg’s dissertation page by page.

Site members created a means of iden-

Members created means of identifying which pages contained plagiarised material, assigning a bar-code pattern to them

tifying which pages contained plagia-rised material, assigning a bar-code pat-tern to indicate plagiarism.

The more bars in the pattern, the more plagiarism a page contained.

“White means it was checked and there was no plagiarism, black means plagia-rism, and red means plagiarism on this page from more than one source,” said Bartel. By the end, he said, “I think there

are only about 5% of the pages on his thesis where there was no pla-giarism, which was the opposite of what we had expected.”

Though Guttenberg resigned in early March, the university also began looking into his thesis, spurred in part by the avalanche of coverage in the mainstream news media, much of which relied on GuttenPlag’s

digging. In its full findings announced on Wednesday, it placed the blame squarely on Guttenberg and cleared itself and his supervising professor of wrongdoing.

Weber-Wulff says she believes, however, that at least part of the responsibility for the culture that enabled Guttenberg to get away with such an egregious violation lies with Germany’s higher-education system.

There is a longstanding notion that professors own all the work done under their supervision, and many are guilty of plagiarism, she said. “In Germany the professors let their doctoral students write for them and then publish under their own name. Doctoral students then steal from the bachelor’s and master’s students under them. We end up having plagiarism all the way down,” she said.

One way of eliminating at least part of the problem would be to cut down on the proliferation of doctoral degrees.

“We need to leave the doctoral titles in academia where they belong,” she said.

Subscribe to a free weekly electronic newsletter from the Chronicle of Higher Education at http://chronicle.com/globalnewsletter

5% of pages

of the defence minister’s

doctoral thesis was not

plagiarised

THE GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE


UK should provide loans to students regardless of the nature of the provider provided they are legitimate and monitored to ensure quality

British minister for universities, David Willetts, welcomes private providers in higher education, provided they ‘pass’ all requirements BY AISHA LABI

UK’s Private Schools Should Learn from US Mistakes, Report Says

As private higher education makes inroads in Britain, lawmakers should look to the United States for lessons on shaping how the industry will grow and evolve, a new report says. “Private Providers in UK Higher Education: Some Policy

Options,” from the Higher Education Policy Institute, an independent think tank, examines the landscape in Britain, where, as in the rest of Europe, most higher-education institutions are public.

There is just one private university in Britain, the not-for-profit University of Buckingham. Last year BPP, a subsidiary of the Apollo Group, the parent company of the for-profit Ameri-can behemoth, University of Phoenix, became the first for-prof-it enterprise to be granted the title of university college, roughly equivalent to an American community college.

It is the sole for-profit provider to have been granted degree-awarding power by the British government, but the report says that “it is unlikely that the Apollo Group will remain the only major for-profit provider in the UK, and over all, we believe that the for-profit sector will grow.”

Although just a handful of private institutions have been accorded formal accreditation, the report underscores that pri-vate providers already play a significant role in British higher education. The largest group consists of colleges based in and around London that serve mainly international students; some of the colleges have partnered with accredited British higher-education institutions to offer their degrees. The Higher Educa-tion Statistics Agency has identified 670 organisations that might provide higher education, according to the report.

This includes anywhere from 50 to 90 branch campuses of American institutions, which operate in Britain but most of

which do not enroll any British or European Union students. “There was more private higher education than we realised when we took a look at it,” says Bahram Bekhradnia, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute. “We have more than the rest of Western Europe, it is growing, and the government is very keen on it.” Britain’s universities minister, David Willetts, has made clear that he welcomes a larger role for private provid-ers in higher education. “If there are organisations that meet the quality standards, that pass all the rigorous requirements for degree-awarding powers, then I do think they would have a strong case” for being granted formal recognition, he said in an interview with The Chronicle last year.


Learning From US’s MistakesOver all, the institute’s report strikes a positive tone about the role of private institutions in higher education. The sector’s growth “adds variety to what’s available and is not necessarily a bad thing. Some people are inclined to be rather snooty about it, and we’re saying you shouldn’t be,” Bekhradnia says.

At the same time, regulation governing private higher educa-tion is “patchy, not systematic, and has been built up over a number of years,” he says.

“We think it needs to be put on a better footing.” The report points to the for-profit industry in the United States as an argument for better regulation. It notes that critics say that US for-profit providers are overly reliant on government support through student loans and grants, “are making excessive prof-its,” encourage poor students to take out loans, have poor retention rates, and that “they ‘cherry pick’ profitable pro-grammes which cannot then be offered by publicly-funded colleges, thus denying them the benefit of cross-subsidy to less-popular programmes.”

There are many lessons to be learnt from the US, Bekhradnia says. “We’re saying, let’s not discourage private providers, but let’s get the regulatory framework right.”

Just last month, as part of an overhaul of student financial aid in the run-up to a sharp increase in tuition at universities in

England that will go into effect next year, the government dou-bled the maximum government loan available to students at private institutions from 3,000 (around $5,000) to 6,000 (nearly $10,000). Willetts said the move was part of the govern-ment’s plan to make “sure students at alternative providers can benefit from the more generous tuition-loan system in place from 2012-13.” One of the report’s central recommendations is that “the government should provide loans to students regard-less of the nature of the provider (for-profit, not-for-profit, or public), provided they are legitimate and are monitored to ensure a high quality of teaching.”

Yet, many in Britain remain opposed on principle to the expansion of private providers.

The University and College Union, the main faculty union, released a statement saying that the report vindicates the union’s views about the danger of increasing reliance on pri-vate providers.

“As events in America have shown, the for-profit model is fraught with danger for students and taxpayers alike, and it is essential that our government rethinks its decision to embrace it,” Sally Hunt, the union’s general secretary said.

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V I E W S , R E V I E W S & M O R E

NEW RELEASES FOR YOUR BOOKSHELF


CLAUDIA DREIFUS

“We don’t look at education as an investment, though we should”

HIGHER EDUCATION? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It, dis-cusses the state and structure of higher education in the 21st century with special reference to the fee vis-a-vis services delivered by institutions.

Authors Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, take a look at the fee structure in the US and criticise what they perceive as an unsubstantiat-ed fee hike, both by public and private institutions.

The book argues that the present tuition structure either puts students in debt, or makes quality education impossible.

It raises some basic questions like: Are colleges delivering value for money? Are its customers (read students and parents) receiving justified returns on their investments?

Are Colleges Wasting our Money?A look at whether universities and colleges in the US and across the world are delivering what they promised

Liberal Arts at the Brink The book demonstrates the difference between intellectually nurtured education and occupational training. The author argues that liberal arts is on its way out

and offers a solution — reduced discounts.

Author: Victor E. Ferrall JrPublisher: Harvard University Press)Price: $25.95

The Unwritten Rules of PhD ResearchA complete guide to PhD for research scholars, the book deals with the subject of managing resources effectively while pursuing a PhD. It reveals the “unwritten rules of research”.

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The authors argue that in most cases students don’t receive what they pay for. The reason for the so-called failure, they say, lies in the fact that colleges take on more roles than they can per-form. They point out that none of the colleges included in the book’s survey seem to be per-forming according to expectations.

If the primary responsibility of colleges is to provide quality education, then, the writers con-clude, higher education across the world has failed in its duty and requires a revamp.

Higher Education? suggests ways to transform the sector. It justifies raised fees in colleges, but criticises the extra fee that institutions charge for facilities such as sports and campus infrastructure. One of the major arguments (which may not go down well with some members of the sector) surrounds the question of the professors’ fee.

The authors state that some members of the group need to get out of their present preoccupa-tion with the paycheck and focus more on teach-ing. They believe that professors, who choose teaching as a calling, have greater obligation towards their students, than what students have towards the professors. Later chapters deal with issues of college administration, fee structure and the role of sports in higher education. AUTHOR: Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus PUBLISHER: Times BooksPRICE: $26

59February 2011 EDUTECH

TIMEOUTTIMEOUT

GADGETS

59June 2011 EDUTECH

Economical Mini Theatre from IntexTHE V3Show Mini Theatre IN 8809 from Intex is the economical successor to its first 3.2-inch touchscreen projector phone, promising all the benefits of the first. The dual-SIM phone with 2.4-inch screen also features a 3.5 mm jack that connects external speakers. Great stuff for campus.PRICE: 6,300

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Artifice for Better Viewing THE new digital photo frame, Artifice, from Zebronics, is just what you need for better photo viewing and sharing. It has a USB flash disk, SD,

MS or MMC card and can be connected to other devices for data transfer and printing. Artifice also features a 7-inch LCD display with 480x230 pixel resolutionwith rotational zoom function. PRICE: 2,100


LEGACY

Ravi J Matthai

There are administrators and then there are able administrators — while the first group do the minimum required — the special few have a lasting impact through the systems they leave behind. Among those who leave a legacy, there are those who ruffle a few feathers here and there in the process — and live to tell the tale.

RJ Matthai, the first full-time director of IIM Ahmedabad, belonged to this category. As the story goes, a former Indian President called up Matthai when he was still in office at IIM Ahmedabad, hoping for a seat for his grandson. Matthai informed the titular head of the country that his grandson would be admitted just like the rest of the candidates — only if he passed the entrance test. Not only that, the brash director also strictly forbade future calls, warning the President that such requests would be taken to the press.

IIM Ahmedabad was a relatively small and unknown institution when Matthai joined as its head. Instead of being daunted by its lack of process, Matthai took the opportunity to put in place systems that were highly democratic and innovative for the time, and also processes that would not cut off the institute’s academics. Instead, he got them more involved in teach-ing along with research and consulting, because he knew that the impact of an institution is greatest if all three are combined. Matthai also understood that to focus on business alone would limit the Institute. It needed to be an institute of management, not just a B-school. And it needed expertise in important Indian sectors, including agriculture. He established a system of frequent faculty meetings, inviting even the research staff. The culture of interac-tion between groups and centres was established during his time and he insisted that faculty exchange and comment on each others’ teaching material, including quiz and exam materi-als, extensively. Matthai himself addressed students periodically.

RJ Matthai was born in 1927, the son of John Matthai, the first railway minister of indepen-dent India. He was educated in Allahabad and at Oxford University, where he specialised in economics. He began his career as a marketing executive in a Kolkata-based firm. He moved on to academics as a senior professor of marketing at IIM Calcutta in 1963. Dr Vikram Sarab-hai invited him to join IIM Ahmedabad as the director when Matthai was aged just 38. Not only was he young, Matthai was neither a full-fledged academic with an advanced academic degree nor a so-called specialist. But, while he lacked academic credentials, Dr Sarabhai recognised what Matthai did possess: an understanding of what it takes to make an adminis-trative system stand better so that faculty, students and the nation stood to benefit. And an empathy which did not require him to be an education specialist.

“A clear sense of purpose comes with the application of knowledge”

(1927-1984)

1963Joins as senior professor, marketing, at IIM Calcutta

1965 Hand-picked by Dr Vikram

Sarabhai to be director of IIM Ahmedabad

1972Steps down as director to

return to professorship

1975 Launches the Jawaja

Experiment

The Jawaja Experiment

• Matthai decides to test whether corporate

management disciplines can be related to core issues of poverty

• He selects Jawaja block (200 villages and 80,000 people) in Rajasthan: an area regarded by the government to be beyond

the scope of development

• Matthai begins to work with village communities along with IIM A and National Institute of

Design volunteers

• Forty years later, the Jawaja Leather Association and

Jawaja Weavers’ Association, continue their struggle for self-reliance, with the workers and weavers winning a degree of

economic independence

The Able Administrator

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Documents

In a League of their Own