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DIALOGUE
CHANGE EDUCATION
Find out what technologies will impact decision making in higher education in 2014 Pg 14
FOREWORD
Nostalgia cant be an excuse for ignoring technology
f we were to trace the history of the tools used in imparting knowledge from the Vedic days to modern day India, we would probably have a couple of chapters for the rst 2000 years and then probably a whole other book just for the last decade. We have come a long way from the time the Vedas and Upanishads were written on dried leaves or even from the time when you and I learnt our rst words using slates and chalks. Todays kids are digital natives, who probably learnt their rst words on a laptop or tablet. The humble notebook and pen though still around could soon become obsolete. Technology is rapidly changing the way we live. The way we learn and teach is just a small part of this revolution. Universities, institutions and colleges are now being judged by the kind of technologies they are using. Simple facts like a well designed and navigation friendly website can make a big impression about your commitment to excellence. A good portion of university budgets are now being apportioned for tech expenses. Having a tech strategy is also a must these days. However, with a slew of new trends in technology it sometimes becomes difcult to gure out a good tech strategy in terms of which tech trends should you consider worth investing in. From practical solutions like online admissions and exams to aspirational solutions like hybrid classrooms and MOOCs, there are enough new trends that are powerful and transformational. So, which are some of these tools that you absolutely must not miss out on this year? Our annual survey on technology attempted to answer precisely this question. Deans, directors, principals and technology heads of institutions were asked to rate and pick the top 10 trends that would bring about a change in higher education in 2014 in this survey. They were also asked to point out the challenges they face in implementing technology solutions and the areas they need to focus on. We hope this survey, though based on popular perception, helps you in designing your tech strategy for this year. We also hope that you are actively changing the way you perceive technology. However much we may still love the smell of paper and the chalk dust, nostalgia can no longer be an excuse to not embrace this change in education.
With a slew of new trends in technology it sometimes becomes difficult to figure out a good tech strategy in terms of which tech trends should you consider worth investing in
CONTENTS EDU
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2014
UPDATES
04 BIMONTHLY HIGHLIGHTS Round-up of the main news items in higher education
VIEWPOINT
06 N V VARGHESE Four trends reviving higher-ed globally
RAND THOuGHTS
08 RAFIQ DOSSANI Four issues that RUSAs plans for research universities ought to address
22
PHILIPS PICK
10 KAREN MAC GREGOR The role of research universities in developing and middle income countries
28
CuRRICuLuM
22 JOB READY ELECTIvE Why IIM-A started an elective on lm business By Charu Bahri
ACADEMICS
25 CONtiNuiNG EDuCatiON How IIT Bombay is making a success of its department for continuing education programmes By Charu Bahri
CAMPuS
32 sOLar POwEr How VIT University is becoming energy self-sufcient By Charu Bahri
GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Find out whats currently happening in institutions around the world. The Chronicle of Higher Education shares its perspectives with EDU 40 THORNY EXCHANGES ON CAMPUS CAN HOLD EDUCATIONAL vALUE By Dan Berrett
PLACEMENTS
28 EmPOwEriNG wOmEN Patna Womens College shares its placement mantra By Charu Bahri
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VOLUmE 01 IssUE 02
FOR LEADERS IN HIGHER EDUCATION
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COVER STORY
10 Trends that will impact tech decisions of colleges in 2014 Results of EDUs annual technology survey
By Anam Naqvi
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BALANCE FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND RELIGIOUS SENSITIvITIES By Aisha Labi 40 PSYCHOLOGICAL COUNSELING AT U OF FLORIDA By Megan ONeil
ADVERTISER INDEX
YOUNG INDiA FiLMS TRS FORMS PEARSON IFC IBC 15
EpSON BC
This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.
UPDATES
Indian business schools are very Indiacentric - a sharp contrast to top global institutions. Indian B-schools need to be global, attract talent from across the globe andplace talent globally
AtisH CHAttOpAdHYAY Deputy Director,PGDM programme, SPJIMR
Our efforts at gender sensitization of our judicial and criminal justice system should include Gender Studies as a subject for all our law courses. Participation in gender sensitization courses must be made mandatory for those aspiring to join the Bench
MArgAret AlvA Governor, Rajasthan
Indian-origin academician Rakesh Khurana succeeds Evelynn Hammonds, professor of African and African American Studies, who stepped down last June.
I am keen to open a branch (of BHU) in Bihar. It is up to theBihar government to provide us land (for it) as soon as possible
LAlJi SingH Vice Chancellor, Banaras Hindu University
VIEWPOINT
NV Varghese
A
6
NV Varghese
VIEWPOINT
grammes, and certication procedures. The distinction between research universities, professionally-oriented universities, and community colleges in the USA; Grandes coles, universities, and IUTs in France; and the creation of service universities in Korea are examples of diversication to improve employability. It needs, however, to be noted that the overemphasis on employability could lead employers to view universities as training institutions rather than academic organisations. This seems to be a very short-sighted and misplaced view. What is, perhaps, needed is diversifying provisions to promote expansion of the non-university sector which can respond more reliably to the changing skill requirements of the job market.
It needs to be noted that the over-emphasis on employability could lead employers to view universities as training institutions
been driving the system towards better convergences and integration globally. The Bologna Process was, perhaps, central to higher education reforms in Europe. The countries in the region developed the European Higher Education Area (EHEA), adopted a credit system (180+120 credits equivalent to 3+2 years of full-time study), effected curricular changes, and embraced quality assurance processes. The effect of the Bologna Process transcended beyond Europe. Countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia formed their own regional networks. This helped evolve a global framework, a comparable degree structure, a credit transfer system and increased mobility between universities located within and between regions. If you view the reforms as interplay of three sets of actors: state, market and households,they indicate that the locus of decision making shifted from state to markets and the incidence of financial burden shifted from state to households. Whether the state wilfully reduced its role or was forced to retreat is another matter. The reforms also indicate a move towards an increasing market orientation, which helped in expansion but also resulted in widening inequalities in access as under market framework access is based on the ability-to-pay principle. Further, these reforms also led to imbalances in expansion between subject areas since the institutions in their efforts to mobilise resources are driven more by nancially attractive but non-core activities than by core academic activities which may be less rewarding nancially. Subscribe to the daily electronic newsletter from EDU at http://edu-leaders.com/content/newsletters
AUTHORS BIO
Professor NV Varghese is currently Director Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), NUEPA, New Delhi. Prior to joining the Centre, he was Head of Governance and Management in Education at the International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), UNESCO, Paris.
RAND is an independent, nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision making through research and analysis. More on: www.rand.org
Four issues that RUSAs plans for research universities ought to address
ByRaqDossani
he Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA), or National Higher Education Mission, is the key implementing initiative of the Indian governments 12th Five Year Plan for higher education. RUSA was established in 2013 with approximately Rs. 100,000 crore (about $16.3 billion) in funding through 2017. It promotes three policy priorities in higher education equity, expansion, and excellence. Its action plans are centered on two objectives: equity-based growth and improvements in teaching-learning and research. It proposes improving teaching-learning and research by creating several world-class universities and academic clusters (groups of autonomous institutions that collaborate to expand student access across institutions), enabling mergers, expanding cross-disciplinary offerings within institutions, and establishing research universities. With regard to the initiative to establish research universities, RUSA species a target of at least one such institution per state over the ve-year-plan period. Noting that only a minority of a nations institutions can become capable of producing great research, RUSAs strategy document argues that Indias research universities are still worthy of state support. Specically, research universities appear to have strong trickle-down effects: They train specialists who can go on to play leading roles in industry, they develop the research and new knowledge needed for science-based economic growth, and they may support national innovation by fostering engagement between the research and industrial communities and the development of new products and services. RUSAs policy priority in establishing these institutions is to develop a high-quality faculty that is committed to disinterested research or knowledge for its own sake. This will attract and develop an excellent student body and additional funding; it will also help build the desired collaborations with
industry and promote other desirable outcomes such as publications and intellectual property. To achieve these outcomes it proposes providing academic freedom, modest teaching loads for faculty, adequate state funding and academic inclusion in institutional governance RUSA presents these action plans in detail, including processes for identifying existing universities that are ideal candidates for government support to grow them into research universities. The goal is to establish least one research university by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan. While much of the proposal for research universities is unexceptional and makes good sense, there are four unusual aspects that would benet from further exploration.
Raq Dossani
RAND THOUGHtS
should have demonstrated its research bent by having existing collaborations with industries. There should be a signicant percentage of students engaged in research. Given that no Indian university would currently fulll the above criteria (not a single Indian university is on the Academic Ranking of World Universities Top 200 list), it is not clear how selecting any institution can be justied according to the plans terms. One or two may come close: the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bangalore and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi (but the latter would be disqualied for other reasons, as explained later). Even for these institutions, the standard for excellence on criteria such as multi-department research output would likely be regional, not global. Further, if qualifying institutions exist, they are likely to be successful because they already receive the support that RUSA recommends as is the case for IISc and may not need further support.
erty created can help the universitys nances and promote its reputation as a place to engage with industry. In fact, the university should support such a process by allowing its faculty to retain some of the commercial benets of inventions using university infrastructure. There ought to be some caveats, however. Specifically, a faculty members academic progress should be based on academic factors, such as publishing record and student evaluations, not on the commercial value of his or her work.
RaqDossani is a senior economist at the RAND Corporation. His research interests include: higher education, technology policy, and globalisation and innovation in services supply-chains. Previously, Dossani was director of the Stanford University Center for South Asia.
No Indian university can currently fulll RUSAs terms for being chosen to be converted to a research varsity
PHILIpS pICK
From International Higher Education the quarterly publication of CIHE
Philip picked this piece as it is focused on the role of research universities in low and middle-income countries
PHILIp G. ALTBACH
Dr. Altbach is director of the Center for International Higher Education and Research Professor at Boston College, USA. He has extensive experience in the field of comparative and international higher education. Professor Altbach holds a doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, and has been Distinguished Scholar Leader of the Fulbright New Century Scholars program. His most recent book is A Half-Century of Indian Higher Education: Essays by Philip G. Altbach, edited by Pawan Agarwal. (Sage, 2012).
esearch universities in low and middle-income countries have crucial roles to play in developing differentiated and effective academic systems and in making it possible for their countries to join the global knowledge society and compete in sophisticated knowledge economies, according to Philip G. Altbach, research professor and director of the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College in the United States. While research universities in the developing world have not yet achieved the top levels of global rankings, they are extraordinarily important in their countries and regionsand are steadily improving their reputations and competitiveness on the international stagewrote Altbach in an article titled Advancing the National and Global Knowledge Economy: The Role of Research Universities in Developing Countries: A key point is that research universities around the world are part of an active community of institutions that share values, foci, and mission. Altbachs article was published in a special issue of the journal Studies in Higher Education dedicated to disseminating key concepts arising out of an investigation into higher educations knowledge structure, in a collaboration between the Center for International Higher Education and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments Innovation, Higher Education and Research for Development programme. Research universities were dened as academic institutions committed to the creation and dissemination of knowledge, in a range of disciplines and elds, and featuring the appropriate laboratories, libraries, and other infrastructures that permit teaching and research at the highest possible level. Worldwide, research universities played complex roles in the academic system, including the core mission of research production and training students to engage in research. The research university is no ivory tower and is relevant to the wider
EDUTeCH January-February 2014
community; much of its research is carried out in collaboration, with funding and sponsorship from non-university sources. The research university is a highly complex and multifaceted institution, serving many societal roles. Research universities worldwide have a great deal in common, stemming from a specic tradition and serving similar roles, Altbach pointed out. There are national variations, but synergy of research and teaching is a hallmark. Knowledge production and dissemination must spread internationally, he argued, and wider dissemination of research capacity throughout the world was imperative. The argument can be made that all countries need academic institutions, linked to the global academic system of science and scholarship, so that they can understand advanced scientic developments and participate selectively in global science. Most countries could afford to support at least one university of sufcient quality to participate in international discussions of science and scholarship and conduct research in elds relevant to national development.
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PHILIpS pICk
ent missions. By distributing resources with an ideal of efciency at its core, the Master Plan also institutionalised a commitment to excellence in its best research universities, such as the University of California, Berkeley. Clark Kerr, architect of the Master Plan, had a vision of the key characteristics of research universities: internal governance primarily in the hands of professors; key decisions receiving inputs from academicsthe concept of shared governance is central; rigorous meritocracy; research intertwined with teaching; academic freedom; and engagement with society. Developing countries also needed to clearly differentiate the missions of institutions in the postsecondary system and to organise institutions in a rational way. Appropriate patterns of funding, realistic teaching arrangements, administrative arrangements, and other key elements of institutions will need to be organised and then implemented. Ensuring that the rapidly expanding private higher education sector is to some extent integrated into the system will also be necessary, Altbach argued. The fact is that few if any developing countries have a differentiated academic system in place; and this central organisational requirement remains a key task. Without an appropriate system, which would vary according to national requirements, research universities could not fully ourish. These institutions must be clearly identied and supported. There must be arrangements so that the number of research universities will be sufciently limited so that funding is available for them and that other resources, such as wellqualied academics, are not spread too thinly. Altbach explored aspects of academia key to research universitiescommunications and networks, journals, libraries, informal communities of scholars, conferences and professional organisations, the Internet, repositories of knowledge, research universities as critical centers, the globalisation of science and scholarship, internationalisation and the research university, the dilemma of language and the academic profession.
Present circumstances
To paraphrase Charles Dickens, these are the best of times and the worst of times for research universities, Altbach wrote. While there was wide recognition of the importance of the research university, international academic conJanuary-February 2014 EDUTeCH
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PHILIpS pICk
Research universities require autonomy to shape their programmes. The balance between autonomy and accountability in developing countries may be complicated
nections and research, many countries did not realise the complexity of and resources needed to build and sustain them. He outlined some of the characteristics of successful research universities: Virtually all are a part of a differentiated system, standing at the top of an academic hierarchy and receiving appropriate support for their mission. Research universitiesexcept in the United States, Japan, and a small number of churchlinked institutions in Latin Americaare overwhelmingly public institutions. The private sector can seldom support a research university, although some private institutions are emerging with a research focussuch as in Turkey, India, and Latin America. Research universities are most successful in regions with little or no competition from nonuniversity research institutes or with strong ties between the universities and such institutes. The academy of science system in countries such as Russia and China and some models of research institutes elsewhere lack connections to universities. Some countries are trying to better integrate research institutes and top universities, in some cases merging themthis would undoubtedly strengthen the universities. Research universities are expensive, requiring more funding than other universities to attract the best staff and students and to provide the infrastructure necessary for top research and teaching. The cost per student is higher than the average across an entire system. Adequate salaries for faculty, well-equipped libraries and laboratories, and scholarships for bright but needy students are examples of the expenditures required.
Research universities must have adequate and sustained budgets; they cannot succeed on the basis of inadequate funding or severe budgetary uctuation over time. At the same time, research universities have the potential for signicant income generation. Students are often willing to pay higher fees because of the prestige attached to a degree from them, quality academic programmes, and access to top professors. Research universities also generate intellectual property and discoveries and innovations with value in the marketplace. In some countries, they can generate philanthropic gifts. Research universities require physical facilities commensurate with their missions, including expensive libraries and laboratories and sophisticated information technology. The infrastructures of research universities are complex and expensive. Not only do they need to be built but they must also be maintained and periodically upgraded. Research universities require autonomy to shape their programmes and practices. The balance between autonomy and accountability in developing countries may be complicated. Academic freedom is a requirement for all postsecondary institutions but especially research universities.
Conclusion
Research universities in developing countries are at the top of the academic hierarchy and are central to the success of any modern knowledgebased economy, Altbach concluded. All developing countries need these institutions to participate in the globalised environment of higher education. Thus, understanding the characteristics of the research university and building the infrastructures and the intellectual environment needed for successful research universities is a top priority. PHILIPS note: Building research universities in developing and middle-income countries is a significant challenges, since these institutions require significant investment over time, and are unique institutions that need considerable autonomy, a recognised mission, and a focus on post-graduate education. They also need to be part of a differentiated academic system, where most universities focus more on teachingand the research mission is concentrated in a smaller number of universities. India has so far been unable to build and sustain such institutions.
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COVER STORY
Technology
DOES A CLASSROOM MEAN ONLY dESKS, BENCHES, A BLACKBOARd, StUdENtS ANd A PROFESSOR? NOt ANYMORE.
ith students and even teachers ditching conventional learning methods classrooms are increasingly becoming tech hubs that use gadgets and technologies that aid learning. Notebooks and pens are giving way to various wireless devices as the favourite mode for taking notes among college goers. The emergence of social networking sites, smartphone applications, digital readers and digital books have made classrooms interactive and smarter. Being present in class and attending lectures are no more a must for learning. There are several course-related materials including digital books and videos available on the internet. Carrying heavy bags around is no more a mark of a studious student. A single device can now store textbooks as well as the entire reading list recommended by a teacher. This new wave is no more limited to just students. To keep up with the times and engage effectively with their students who are digital natives, lecturers and professors have also started using technology. Teachers are using interactive and clouds based tools to teach in class bringing in a whole different approach to lecturing. Teachers are also using social media to carry on course related discussions beyond the classroom and clarify specic doubts. Students and teachers are both beneting from online exams. The process of taking exams and assessing papers has become almost hassle free. College applications have also become much simpler with online tools. Amidst so many new trends in technology, which trends will affect Indian institutions the most in 2014? Which trends should you look out for when making technology related decisions for your institution? The results of EDU s annual survey on technology can answer these questions for you. Read on to find out what the trends look like.
THE TRENDS
We asked our respondents,which included deans, directors, principals and technology heads, to rate and pick the technologies that would make the most impact in Indian higher education in 2014. Here is how they rated the technologies:
BY VIKAS SHARMA
15
cover story
Technology
LESSONS ON DEMAND
With 89.9% votes, lessons on demand came a close second. Like Hybrid and ipped learning the concept of lessons on demand is also focused on home learning on the basis of a video with a teacher or animated instructions. Such video lessons are published by universities or institutions or independent entities and are focused on particular subjects. These lessons are generally free and are available to anyone with access to the internet. Students can use these lessons to move ahead if they have missed a few classes. Since these lessons are available at any time after being published, one can look at them at any time. They can also pause these lessons and come back to them whenever time allows it. Lessons on Demand are best suited for distance learning students. Those who learn part time and work full time can
learn whenever they can give time to lessons and finish courses according to their schedule without having to sit in physical classrooms. Individual devices can turn into virtual classrooms any time.
and publishing test results online. Online exams and e-assessments are becoming popular in tests based on multiple-choice questions, or questions that have just a single-word answer. Technologies that can help assess essay-type questions are still evolving. An advantage of e-assessments is that it provides immediate feedback to students as a machine records answers and checks them at the same time. The possibility of human errors is also reduced when computerized marking is used. E-assessment has the potential to make its mark in entrance tests as the physical presence of exam takers may no longer be a prerequisite.
EDUs annual tech survey showed leaders are placing their bets on Hybrid and Flipped Learning, Lessons On Demand E-Assessments and Online exams to induce change in Indian Higher Education in 2014.
TecHNoLoGy TreNDs
Hybrid learning and Flipped Classrooms Lessons on-demand E-assessment & online exams Interactive boards and visual presenters Cloud based tools Tablets & smart phones Social networking Digital books Massiv Open Online Courses Bring Your Onw Device 92.60% 89.90% 89.30% 88.60% 87% 85% 83.20% 83.20% 77.10% 68.40%
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Technology
cover story
tive boards and visual presenters have been in the business of education for quite some time now. Apart from the traditional blackboard and chalk, teachers have begun using projectors, slides and colourful boards to make lessons more interesting. It is no surprise then that such visual presenters, projectors and boards will continue to affect higher education. It is important that lecturers use such tools along with other newer trends to engage the ever distracted student. Long lectures are not the norm anymore; students want to experience what they are learning. Visual aids lend the much needed freshness to learning.
Virtual class rooms with interactive facilities for distance education is the trend that will have an impact on technology decisions
Director Jain University, Bangalore
Creating a digital repository and using learning management systems like Modular Object Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment can change education
Acting Principal Vidyalankar Institute of Technology, Mumbai
V. B Nanda Gopal
Seema Shah
can more or less perform the same functions as a desktop computer or a notebook. And their advantage is that they can be carried anywhere. These carry anywhere devices help students and lecturers alike make use of cloud based tools, videos, documents and website right when required. It also rids one of lugging around heavy paper notebooks for writing notes, as students can take these notes easily on their tablets and phones whenever required. These devices can also be hooked on to projectors and students can use them creatively to make presentations or show their assignments.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
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Technology
SOCIAl NETWORKING
Though social networking is at number seven, it has a remarkably high vote of 83.2% as a trend that will affect technology decisions this year. As Facebook enters its 10th year and Twitter readies to sell its shares publicly, social media has started being regarded as a serious business. One can now nd several universities on Facebook and Twitter. Social networking has become the quickest way of connecting with current and prospective students and enhancing learning through a personal connect. Students now have groups on networking websites where they share ideas with each other and even take these discussions to class. Teachers can also take part in the discussions on these sites to help clarify doubts. Lecturers, Deans and Prinicipals are also taking to social media to form a personal connect with students. Applications like Whatsapp and other instant messaging services are also getting popular. Scheduling and cancelling of classes and deadlines for assignments can be easily communicated.
part from the new trends in technology, respondents to the survey were also asked to detail challenges that they face in implementing these ideas and the areas that higher education institutions need to focus on. The survey reveals that most decision makers believe it is important for institutions to rst be aware of the technology solutions and identifying the right technologies before the next step is taken. It would then be important to understand the utility of these solutions and plan the strategy to implement them which would involve motivating stakeholders to
use the technology solutions and get funds to implement them. It was also important to train educators and students to use the technology solutions. When asked about the technology solutions that higher education institutions must focus on, most respondents said campus networks is the most important. Student learning solutions were next followed by institutional websites and portals. The survey also saw digital libraries, student record systems and web-based solutions for students and online assessments as important areas that need to be focused on.
TecHNoLoGy CHALLeNGes
91.3%
99.4%
94.7%
DIGITAl BOOKS
At the eighth position, though digital books got an overall rating of 83.2% it got only 38.9% votes in high impact zone and 44.3% in medium impact. Looks like the academic and administrator community in higher education is still averse to e-books. A reason for this could be that not all prescribed books are available digitally. It is also hard for some students to switch from conventional written form to digital form. However, digital books do have a huge potential as storing them and browsing through them is easier.
96.7%
Respondents to EDUs survey placed being aware of new technologies as the most important challenge that higher education institutions need to take head on in 2014.
94% 96%
97.3%
95.3%
94%
Awareness of technology solutions Understanding the utility of technology solutions Planning a technology strategy for the HEI Getting funding for technology initiatives Identifying the right technologies for HEI
Leveraging technology solutions properly Training & motivating stakeholders to use technology solutions Maintaining & upgrading technology solutions Integrating existing & new technology solutions
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Technology
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TecHNoLoGy focUs
Educators believe that establishing campus networks, enhancing student learning solutions and innovating institutional websites and portals are the most important areas that higher education institutions should focus on in 2014.
Tablets and mobile devices Cloud solutions Data centers
72.4% 97.3%
Campus networks
78.5%
85.2%
86.5%
IT security solutions
96%
Student learning solutions
85.3%
73.2%
95.9%
94.7%
Web-based student services
69.8%
Digital classrooms Marketing & CRM systems
85.3%
89.9%
92%
It is important to understand the mindset of the consumers who would use these technology solutions
Sanjay Kumar Bahl
Director, Sri Sai Institute of Management, Manawala, Amritsar
Using technology should make students work ready and world ready, that is what HEIs should focus on
Director Planning, Reva University, Bangalore
N. Ramesh
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Technology
Apart from the survey on trends, institutions were also asked to share some best practices in the way technology is used in their institution. Heres a look at two such practices.
irla Institute of Technology and Science Pilani with campuses in Pilani, Hyderabad, Goa and Dubai began using online admission tests for under graduate programmes to make it more viable and student friendly. In 2005, when it started 40,000 students took BITSAT from 14 centres. The number increased to 1,39,000 taking the test in 40 different centres including Dubai. The number is only expected to grow, says Prof BN Jain, Vice Chancellor BITS Pilani. In the last eight years of its existence over 50 different sessions spread across three weeks were proctored with biometrics and processed through the web. The most signicant advantage of the online test is that it can be taken at any time after it is scheduled from any computer across the world and a student can also reappear for the test if he or she has missed it for the first time. Not only is online testing feasible and environment friendly but it
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Technology
cover story
r T Prasad decided to experiment with blogs as he believed writing could help in the process of teaching and learning. He began writing blogs on various subjects and sharing them with his MBA students. He also encouraged his students to write blogs on the course material, encouraging a self learning process. Professor Prasad shares posts that he wrote in the previous year with students from the current batch along with links to blogs of earlier students. It is then expected that the current batch of students read the material and come prepared to discuss the material in class. The professor also encourages the students to write posts as per their understanding after the course has been discussed keeping in mind previous faculty blogs, previous student
blogs and feedback from classroom discussion, thus enriching the content and understanding of the course. Education is about teaching as well as Learning but, most conventional focus is only on teaching. The learning part is missing and not given proper importance in education. Modern technologies like Blogs help the learning processes become more transparent, says the professor. The core members of this initiative include the professor and other faculty members and students as they accept this form of learning. This technology does not limit its use to the classroom and a particular group of students and teachers. Blogs are open for comments and inputs from students and teachers around the world, and that adds further to learning. Since starting a blog is quite simple there is no need for a budget, training or permissions. The idea of learning from blogs has been well received. Professor Prasad says students started comparing their understanding of a subject to that of their seniors and expanded their knowledge bank. Since content was available in advance students found it helpful to prepare for class.
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Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad began an elective on the business of lms, to tap job opportunities in the sector
By CHARU BAHRI
a S T R a T S A M i I E S R U O C FiLm
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EDUTeCH January-February 2014
BY VIKAS ShARMA
n 2008, Kandaswamy Bharathan, lm producer and an alumnus of IIM-A, got a surprise phone call from his alma mater. The institutes management wanted his help in designing and delivering a course on the Indian lm industry. A course on the business of lms was unheard of but then that was precisely the reason the institute wanted to start it. Though Kandaswamy had never taught before, the institute believed his experiences in the lm industry coupled with his management degree would help in creating a comprehensive course. The institute approached me as I am familiar with the style of teaching at IIM Ahmedabad and also have extensive domain knowledge and experience, from working as an executive director at Kavithalayaa Productions, says Professor Kandaswamy, now a visiting faculty at IIM-A. Professor Kandaswamy joined Kavithalayaa Productions, a Chennai based production house, in 1991 and since then has produced lms and television shows in four languagesTamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Hindi. The brainchild of veteran lmmaker and Dadasaheb Phalke Awardee, Dr K Balachander, Kavithalayaa Productions is hugely popular in South India for lms such as Roja, Ek Duje Ke Liye and Muthu and introduced stars like Rajinikanth, Kamal Hassan, and the music genius A R Rahman. Though it came as a surprise, the idea of the first ever course in India on the business of lms hooked him to the project. And thus was born the course Contemporary film industrya business perspective. Bollywood is fast maturing as an industry, yet until now no one had looked at the production of lms from an educational perspective. Even institutions such
Kandaswamy Bharathan
Professor, IIM-Ahmedabad and Executive Director, Kavithalayaa Productions
Bollywood is fast maturing as an industry, yet until now no one had looked at the production of lms from an educational perspective
material for reference. Listing the course modules was easy but initially, I struggled to put together material for 90-minute long lectures, he recollects. To prepare relevant material he turned to the West for ideas. Universities in the US like Wharton, Kellogg, Colombia, UCLA offer well-designed courses on the movie business. But their courses are based on practices in Hollywood, which is much more mature than the Indian lm industry. But studying their concepts was a good start. I adapted their modules to Bollywood and added new concepts and the best practices in the Indian film industry, he shares. Its been ve years but Professor Kandaswamy believes his course is continuously evolving and will continue to do so Its important to give the course a fresh look every year. I pick new examples and applications to illustrate the concepts. This keeps the course relevant.
as Whistling Woods, Film & Television Institute of India and Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute, only impart training in acting, direction and editing. Explaining why it is important to have a course on the business of lms he adds, The Indian lm industry is the biggest in the world in terms of number of annual productions with an output of 1,000 lms in 16 languages. It stands to reason that this burgeoning sector will need qualied professionals in the years to come.
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CURRICULUM
Job-ready elective
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Two interactive guest sessions are also an integral part of the course. One visitor is from the creative side of movies and the other is someone dealing with the business of films. Aamir Khan, Karan Johar, Madhavan and Dhanush (of Kolaveri Di fame) have delivered lectures to students as guests from the creative side, A recent guest from the business aspect of films was Sudhanshu Vats, CEO of Viacom 18 Media.
This course exemplies how management education can be made more interesting and relevant for our time, says Professor Kandaswamy. Its success is best reected in its growing numbers of takers. In 2008, barely 25 students registered for the course, and that too, mainly out of curiosity, says Professor Kandaswamy. The ensuing year, enrolments reached 70 and by 2010, registrations had crossed 100, a healthy number for an annual intake of 440 in the management programme. In the current year, Professor Kandaswamy is teaching two batches of 135 students. It has become the elective with the highest number of registrations, he notes with satisfaction. Business schools across India have taken note of the course and as a result Kandaswamy has started a similar programme in ISB, Hyderabad, and IIM Lucknow. He is also delivering guest lectures on the lm industry at other IIMs. Very soon, Professor Kandaswamy will also launch a parallel course in the business of television. This elective, to be offered to second year students of IIM-As agship post-graduate management programme, builds on the growing viewership of daily soaps, talk shows, reality and game shows, music and dance programmes and lm-based programmes. It will provide an insight into different business trends in the electronic media. Many leading Indian television channels are already hiring regular MBA pass-outs for their marketing and advertising functions. A formal course in the business of television will help to prepare students better and also make them job ready.
By offering something to industry professionals from different walks of life, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay is building a community of dedicated takers for its Department for Continuing Education Programmes
bY cHARU bAHRi
Dynamic course
Serving working professionals is challenging because different aspirants have different goals. Some aspire to stay abreast with advancements in critical areas of technology to widen their knowledge base. Others seek to widen their skill base to improve promotion prospects. Over and above these individual aspirations, industrial houses see in IIT-B a partner who can help them become globally competitive and design tailored courses to develop their human resources.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
BY VIKAS SHARMA
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ACadEMICS
Continuing education
Tailored short and long courses are run exclusively for a specic company or organisation. These can be held at IIT-B or the companys premises
On its part, IIT-B also wants to build bridges between its different departments and industry, to promote positive interactions between its faculty and working professionals. doctors and management professionals alike to study the topics that interest them. Typically, open courses are intensive and spread over 2 to 5 days. Many of these include hands-on experience in IITBs labs. According to Professor Bandyopadhyay, One of the institutions most popular open courses is one on Piping Engineering. Launched in 1990, it made IIT Bombay the rst university in the world to conduct a formal training programme in Piping Engineering as applied to process plant design, engineering and construction. Over 64 editions conducted in the classroom have beneted more than 8,000 engineers of different ages, from across the world. IN-HOUSE PROGRAMMES: Tailored short and long courses are run exclusively for a specic company or organisation, on demand. These can be held either at IIT-B or the companys premises. For instance, the Indian Police Service has requisitioned IIT-B to design and annually deliver a sixday in-house course on The role of technology in crime and crime prevention. IPS ofcers and ofcers of other paramilitary organisations like CISF, CRPF and RPF are beneficiaries of this course funded by the Ministry of Home Affairs and Bureau of Police Research and Development, New
In response to industry expectations, since 1988, IIT-Bs Department of Continuing Education Programmes has created multiple avenues to increase access to its education programmes and reach out to industry and participate in nationbuilding. These include: REGULAR CONTINUING EDUCATION PROGRAMMES: Working professionals can sign up for regular post-graduate level semester courses and slowly work their way through these, attending three lectures each week in the evening hours or early morning hours. Credits they earn can be transferred and counted towards an M.Tech degree at IIT-B provided they are admitted to those courses through the regular stream. QUALITY IMPROVEMENT PROGRAMMES: These government and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) sponsored short courses are open for faculty members of engineering colleges. As train the trainer courses, these aim at improving the quality of engineering education being imparted across India. ation BRIeF N I g Educ Another AICTE-sponH W ntinuin 5 o C e , e H g T har sored option allows ion or-in-C Educat Profess , y a y h inuing t d teachers from engineera n o p o C y f d ent o an Ban epartm ing colleges to pursue Dr Bijn f the D o s : o ie h it W ctiv full-time M.Tech and rward a ering fo e t m S Ph.D. programmes at T syste What: m the II going o n r o f , t 8 8 e 9 IIT-B. Here they get a en in 1 rm to b Started a platfo ls chance to revisit the cura n io When: s s g profe riculum from the stuworkin To give nals rofessio dents perspective. They Why: ds of p e e n e bay ing th return to their institus fulll IIT Bom : course f o y t Where tions after completing g a varie oducin the course. By intr How: OPEN COURSES: IITBs open courses attract
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Continuing education
ACadEMICS
Revenue: Course fees are shared between the faculty and institute in the ratio of 70:30
Bijnan Bandyopadhyay
The best way to serve beyond those who take admission to regular programmes, is by giving working professionals an opportunity to better their skills
Learning technology: The Indian Police Service has requested for a six-day course
Delhi. Each year, the Bureau of Police Research and Development nominates 15-25 ofcers for the course. Typical topics are: Wi-Fi Cyber Crimes, Cyber Crime and Internet Security, DNA analysis in Forensics, Application of Imaging in Police Department, Optimal Sensors for Pathogen/Explosive Detection, etc. Since in-house programmes are designed on-demand, these help create close ties between the organisation and IIT-B. In recent years, IIT-B has limited the companies from which it accepts requests to design custom courses, to exclude third-parties. We insist that only companies and organisations whose own employees need training can ask for assistance. We are not in the business of designing courses to be offered join-tly with others, claries Professor Bandyopadhyay. DELIVERY MODES: To maximise the number of enrolments to its continuing education programmes, IIT-B offers these courses directly as well as through online. Online courses are more comprehensive, offering about ve times the content of the contact course. Online courses use information technology tools very effectively and help engineers to learn engineering concepts in a
convenient place, at a pace that suits them. Certain features make these courses effective, such as user-friendly design, easy-to-understand language, condence-building mock examinations, solved examples and tutorials, and animations and movies to explain engineering drawings and documents. IIT-Bs Certicate Course on Piping Engineering is now available to engineers in both the contact as well as the online mode. In serving industry, IIT-B is redeeming itself. Last year, IIT-B conducted 50 open courses, each attended by an average of 30 participants. The institute conducted 41 in-house courses. A couple of participants enrolled in each of 37 post-graduate level courses which are open to industry people. Also, IIT-B is playing a major role in enhancing the quality of engineering education, taking on groups of 30 trainees at a time through its Quality Improvement Programmes. In the near future, we expect the number of participants per course to increase to 60, adds the futuristic professor. Also, continuing education programmes bring in valuable revenue. Last year, IIT-B earned six crore rupees through this route. Fees are shared between the faculty and institute in the ratio of 70:30. Continuing education programmes benefit industry as well as motivate faculty to push the boundaries of course design because they are remunerated for going the extra mile, concludes Professor Bandyopadhyay. Truly a winwin situation.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
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PLACEMENTS
Empowering women
IN SPiTE OF OFFERiNG MOSTLY CONVENTiONAL UNDERGRADUATE COURSES, PATNA WOMENS COLLEGE iS HELPiNG iTS GRADUATES FiND MEANiNGFUL EMPLOYMENT iN DiFFERENT SECTORS AND HELPiNG THEM TO RELOCATE TO OTHER CiTiES
BY CHARU BAHRi
decade ago, Patna Womens College did not offer its students any placement services as most of its students are enrolled for undergraduate courses in arts, science, commerce and vocational streams. It recently started a post graduate programme in computer applications and its only other post graduate programme was one in home science, hence it saw limited scope for placements. But wanting to impact the lives of young women passing out from its campus, changed the outlook of Dr Sister Doris DSouza, principal of the Christian minority college a constituent unit of Patna University, Patna and a National Assessment and Accreditation Council accredited (A grade) institution. When the University Grants Commission accorded College with Potential for Excellence status to Patna Womens College in 2004, Principal Dr DSouza had to think of new ways to help its students. She identied placement services as the one thing missing in the college. So that very year, Patna Womens College took a conscious decision to prioritise placements. Principal Dr DSouza tells us why: Graduates with some work experience are better prepared for higher studies. We saw it as our responsibility to
help students acquire such experiences. We also realised that it was our duty to help students who cannot take up higher studies, due to constraints, to get meaningfully absorbed in industries and to pursue their careers.
Placement challenges
There were only a few coveted local employment avenues which made the new priority a tall order. Neither did it help that the colleges pass outs are graduates in conventional streams, of which there are plenty in all Indian cities, nor is Patna a usual stop for multinational corporations based out of other cities in India. The placement ofcers had another dilemma should they actively liaise with concerned human resource departments or approach companies through agents? So a steep learning curve lay ahead of the college. Another important thing was that communication and soft skills of students needed pulling up. Women from conservative backgrounds also wanted the faculty to help convince their parents to let them take up jobs in other cities. Would the college be able to achieve that?
Stepping out
Patna Womens Colleges holistic approach that focused on preparing students for placements as well as on attracting companies to the campus worked well. Heres what the college did: SET UP A PLACEMENTS CELL: At the outset, a Placement Cell was created and Professor Sahar Rahman of the Department of English and Professor Debjani Sarkar of the Department of Geography were asked to take up the additional duty as placement ofcers. Their mandate is to boost quality placements at Patna Womens College. LIAISE WITH INDUSTRY: To kick start placements, the ofcers connected with Ma Foi Consultants. The agency conducted campus interviews for HSBC. As a result, three students got placed in 2005 and four in the following year. At this point, the placement ofcers realised the need to directly liaise with representatives of companies. Professor Sahar Rahman explains whyWe did not want any agency between our students and their employers. Direct dealings would save us from the hassle of checking the credentials of the consultants. It would also ensure that the privacy and safety of our girls are not compromised because
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
IMAGE BY PHOTOS.COM
29
PLACEMENTS
Empowering women
their CVs and other personal details are accessed by the consultants. So the placement ofcers started to make contact with human resource heads of companies in the information technology, BPO, media and banking sectors, and invited them to their campus for placement drives. They chose these sectors seeing scope for their graduates to get placed. Bachelors in computer applications and in science can get placed in the information technology industry, graduates in mass communication and in communicative English with media studies can be employed in media, commerce and economics graduates can nd jobs in banking and any graduate can get jobs in BPOs, says Placement Ofcer Professor Debjani Sarkar. After the word got around, the placement ofcers were pleasantly surprised to be approached by a few companies. We responded positively to such calls, says Professor Sarkar. PLACEMENT CELL REPRESENTATIVES: Every year, the placement ofcers train 30 nal year students from each department as Placement Cell Representatives. These students are briefed about the functions of the Cell and are made responsible to ensure the participation of their classmates in placement activities. According to Dr Rahman, This has worked well especially in the beginning when footfalls used to be very low. PREPARE STUDENTS: The placement ofcers periodically hold workshops and interactive sessions on communication and soft skills for students. Students are encouraged to become more proactive about nding employment. Vacancy notices and tips to enhance employability are put up on the Placement Cell notice board. COUNSEL PARENTS: An early placement hiccup was the challenge that young some women from conservative families faced in convincing their parents to let them relocate to other cities. Most of the selected students are from middle class backgrounds. In the early years, a lot of their parents did not support the idea of their daughters taking up jobs elsewhere. It was embarrassing because even after girls were appointed in large numbers many could not join the jobs, shares Professor Sarkar. To address this issue, IBM Daksh (Gurgaon) conducted interactive sessions for parents of young women selected by the company. On a couple of occasions, the IBM Daksh recruitment team was accompanied by former college students working with the company. This worked very well It inspired girls to join the company and
Sahar Rahman
We did not want any agency between students and employers. Direct dealings would save us from the hassle of checking the credentials of the consultants
parents could learn from the rst-hand experiences from former students.
Recruitment success
Placements started to look up in 2007. That year, TCS picked up 75 students, IBM Daksh selected 120 students, Wipro BPO selected 29 students, and Wipro Tech six students. Infosys BPO joined the fray in 2008. Star TV started to recruit a few college students in 2010. In 2009 IBM Daksh awarded Patna Womens College collected for achieving the highest number in campus joinees. The company has consistently recruited young women from the college 72 in 2008, 73 in 2009, 118 in 2010, 102 in 2011, 36 in 2012 after the company became IBM GPS and 68 in 2013. According to Professor Rahman, It has helped that our girls have performed well after joining. That keeps up the interest in Patna Womens College. A few companies which Patna Womens College counts as its placement partners today are IBM GPS (previously called IBM Daksh), Wipro BPO, Wipro Tech, TCS and Star TV. Of the approximately 1,700 students passing out every year, 30 to 40% are keen to get placed and participate in the campus placements drive. Last year, 20% of the participating students got placed. Principal Dr DSouza observes that the colleges current crop of graduates is far more condent about launching themselves in careers than those of a decade ago. They aunt their selection letters, she shares. Applicants for enrolment in the college have gone up by about 30% because of the placement cell (and other) facilities introduced in the last decade.
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CAMPUS
Solar Power
To achieve energy self-sufciency, Vellore Institute of Technology has committed to developing renewable energy in a big way by investing in tapping solar energy and driving research by both faculty and students
I
BY ViKAs SHARMA
n 2001, VIT University, Vellores core governing committee backed by none less than the Chancellor Dr G Viswanathan committed to energy self-sufciency. We aim at 100 per cent energy self-sufciency says G V Selvam, Vice President, VIT University (VIT), Vellore, the driving force behind its energy initiatives. What inspires Selvam is the strong sunshine that graces most parts of India for the better part of the year. Notwithstanding the large upfront investment needed to tap solar energy, the returns from the installation after the payback period are substantial. Selvam knows this from VIT Universitys early experiences in tapping solar energy, which he is building on. Also, he is driving research in solar energy by both faculty and students, to improve upon and expand the applications of solar energy on the campus.
33
CAMPUS
Solar Power
Sun as fuel: An advanced solar energy cooking system was commissioned which can also be used to fry food
niversity ent, VIT U id s re P e ic ,V GV Selvam s re WhO: y initiative (VIT), Vello able energ cient w e n re d n lf-suf solar a energy se Is driving make VIT WhAt: lly a u d ra to g g 01, ongoin own rted in 20 ta S : ergy, cut d N WhE le solar en ctricity, b ila va a ly e le To tap fre onal grid e ate a WhY: n conventi lar energy and cre reliance o o s in search titution conduct re y self-sufcient ins rg e n e l mode nnai d VIT, Che Vellore, an , IT V chnical : E WhER in-house te g solar and g in p lo ve e ltin Through d olar energy, consu nching solar HOW: in s d lau n a , s rt e expertise p energy ex in phases renewable le energy projects b a w e and ren
IN THE 5WH
BRIEF
through solar photo voltaic units is stored in batteries and used for street lighting at night. As a corollary of this project and to make the most of the stored energy, VIT piloted the use of low-energy consuming 12 watt LED lights in place of 40 watt tubes lights, mercury and sodium vapour lamps, for street lighting in the
Vellore campus. LED lights replaced mercury street lights at junction points on an experimental basis. Then, a 90 watt LED bulb/pulp cost around Rs 15000 vis--vis the current Rs 5000 per piece. It took VIT 3 to 4 years to recover this investment. Based on that success, the institute has since replaced the remaining street lights and tubes in all
the hostels with 12 watt LED lights. Doing so has helped cut the power consumed by tubes by over 75%. Also in 2003, it commissioned a gridinteractive bio-mass power plant, producing approximately 1500 units per day. This output is channelled to students hostels through the internal grid. A government grant helped meet part of the expenses of this project, which meets 1 to 1.2% of the universitys energy requirement. PHASE III: In 2010, VIT completed the installation of indirect solar water heaters with a capacity of 20000 litres per day in its Chennai campus. The following year it installed a similar 10000 litres per day system in its Vellore campus. Indirect systems help avoid failures due to salt deposition. By then, VIT had started to think in earnest about methods to bring down the cost of solar energy devices. Its in-house CO2 Research and Green Technologies
34
Solar Power
CAMPUS
G V Selvam
Meeting needs: VIT commissioned a grid-interactive bio-mass power plant, producing approximately 1,500 units per day
Centre fabricated indigenous solar photovoltaic street lights for its Vellore campus. Costing only Rs 80000 per device, each of these comprises four LED lights, a battery bank and inverter. Four such street lights were installed as an experiment. Keen to save electricity through solar powered street lighting in its Chennai campus as well, VIT installed 56 China-made LED street lights there over 2010 and 2011, at a cost of Rs 1.56 lakh per piece. Powered by solar photovoltaic panel, aero generator (wind mill) and the grid, these can store energy in their battery bank. In 2012, VIT commissioned an advanced solar energy cooking system which can generate temperatures up to 300 degrees Centigrade, and which can be used for frying as well as regular cooking. ONGOING PHASE IV: VITs latest initiative is a 2 MW solar photovoltaic grid interactive project, which doesnt need a separate storage facility. Ventus, a company specialising in solar energy, is set-
ting up this plant on 7.5 acres of land provided by VIT. Other ongoing projects include the installation of a biomass pyrolysis unit to produce bio-oil from agro waste, solar tri-generation system and solar photovoltaic-based pumps for pumping water from borewells. Also, VITs CO2 Research and Green Technologies Centre is developing a solar photovoltaic panel tree for VIT, capable of producing 16 kW per tree through 16 branches at different levels. This will cut down the land required to produce solar energy by 50%, from 5 acres per MW to 2.5 acres per MW.
institutions to meet 6% of their power usage from renewable energy. Incidentally, before passing this directive, Tamil Nadu state government ofcials paid visits to VIT to study and learn from its achievements in harnessing solar energy. VITs experience allows it to offer to students courses in renewable energy. Its bachelors in technology course in the mechanical engineering stream, offers students the option to specialise in Energy Engineering. It also offers a masters course in technology on Energy & Environmental Engineering. Students are also working with faculty on solar projects, such as the creation of solarpowered mobile device charging poles for the use of 21000 students in the Vellore campus and another 4000 in the Chennai campus. Other ongoing research aims at improving the efficiency of solar panel powered battery cars used for intra-campus faculty transfers. VIT is truly racing to tap solar energy.
January-February 2014 EDUTECh
35
DIALOGUE
36
sUBHOJIT PAUL
Persons Name
DIALOGUE
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DIALOGUE
So my advice to women would be to actively seek out administrative roles and prepare for them if they are interested in such roles. You cant just wait for these roles to come to you. Many US universities have instituted mentorship programmes to advise young women on their careers. Policy interventions like these are very important and I dont think things will change without those interventions. As far as my story goes, I am a scientist and I had a long career as a biochemist when I ran a research laboratory. I actually think that those experiences helped me enormously in rising through the ranks to rst be a Dean and then a Vice Chancellor and a President.
You came in as the President at a time in 2002 when Michigan was into its worst economic downturns and you are leaving at a time when U-M is ranked 12th globally and has the largest research budget in US for a public university. What were the steps you took that helped the University gain this status? When I came in to Michigan, I was prepared for the prospect of economic austerity. I dont think I understood at that time how severe it would be, but the state of Iowa had also begun to have some economic problems so I already had some experience with making strategic decisions about what to cut in order to preserve the academic core. But by the time I came to Michigan it became much more severe. Theres no one piece but a coming together of several pieces that really allowed us to thrive. First of all I had a very good team of smart people around me. It is an absolute must to have people that are the best at what they do at every single position. The second piece was a concentration on cost saving, and it really helped that I had that team which really understood how to find efficiencies in the operations of the university that are not academic core. We were able to save a lot of money by simply making services
like cleaning buildings, more efcient. We got better purchasing contracts and changed the way we do our operations. We have taken out about 230 million dollars from the recurring costs of the basic operations simply by examining everything we did and doing it better and more efciently. During this time we have had no faculty layoffs or furloughs. We have in fact been able to give small increases in faculty salaries. The third piece that helped us is ramping up our philanthropy. We have a tremendous philanthropy tradition and so were able to have a hugely successful capital campaign. The fourth piece was working at making our research enterprise flourish. We streamlined many of our policies for faculty to get grants. Our interactions with the industry and companies also changed. We created a business engagement centre, a one-stop-shop that was extremely helpful in getting many more grants and contracts from companies. The fth piece was around admitting out of state students who pay higher tuition. Thanks to the way our state was changing we had a different tuition rate for in state and out of state students. The in state population of high school graduates is going down quite precipi-
tously so we were able to admit more out of state students who pay much higher tuition. Our success is a result of these pieces coming together. We were able to provide modest tuition increases and more nancial aid. Philanthropy stepped up, the research enterprise ourished, cost saving strategies became more aggressive, interactions with companies to bring in more resources to the university increased and so we were able to provide modest tuition increases even as nancial aid increased.
You are regarded as one of the most successful fundraisers. You along with your husband have contributed over $1.79 million to university funds. What are the attributes that makes fundraising campaign successful? What would your advice be to universities looking to raise funds? Both my husband and I were really transformed by our experiences as students going abroad and experiencing the world. We were in Iowa, a small western state and hadnt seen the rest of the world. But we were lucky because our parents could afford to send us abroad. My husband became a Latin Americanist and I became a biochem-
38
DIALOGUE
We dont sign a lot of MOUs but once we are in we are all in. Our goal is to do those that are going to be benecial for both parties
ist. We just understood so much more about the world by being able to go abroad. Those experiences were so important in our lives that we wanted to do something to help students whose parents might not be able to afford to send them abroad. Thats the reason for my personal interest in promoting global education. Fundraising is also a very big part of my job. I probably spend almost half of my time in fundraising. Its much more subtle than going to people that youve never met and asking them for money. You have to develop relationships, build confidence and present a vision that gets people excited about something signicant that they can do to support students, build a programmme or even a new building. These are long relationships. Most of the people that give a lot of money to the university have been known to me for years and years and have developed a friendship and trust. As a university you have to demonstrate to people that you will be good stewards of their moneythat you will be responsible and invest it well and that you will create the programmes. Its a combination of the two and at the University of Michigan weve built a lot of trust with our donors over many years and I think thats why we are so successful.
Brazil. Our relationship with India goes back several years as we have had connections at the faculty level and through the Centre for South Asian Studies. However, planning for these trips at the administrative level began about a year and a half ago. To plan these trips one of the things we do is to gauge faculty interest and assess where the best opportunities are. We do many advance visits and make sure that the faculty get together and that we have a very good plan to make our partnerships substantive. So thats how this visit developed and I am very optimistic that even though I am stepping down these relationships will continue to be very robust. We have over 10 MoUs in India and this time we signed four, NCAER, AIIMS, Ashoka and DU.
U-M is known for its interdisciplinary richness. How should a university work at improving interdisciplinary interactions? You have to be quite directed in providing a mechanism and incentives for people to become more interdisciplinary. We have indeed become much more interdisciplinary during my tenure. We started out by offering money to faculty for them to develop and run courses that would be interdisciplinary. But they had to compete for getting this money and we picked the ones that were the best. Faculty also had to compete for positions that were interdisciplinary and again it was incentives all along the way. We provided research funding for interdisciplinary projects as well as for teaching projects. It has worked quite well for us over the last decade. In order for it to work you have to invest, you have to have a plan and you have to let faculty understand how this plan will enrich their lives. I think most people at Michigan now will say that it has worked. How do you plan your collaborations? How did this trip to India come about? We have long term partnerships across Africa, in China and Brazil. We are just beginning our relationships in
Is there a bent towards liberal arts in the kind of collaborations you are looking at? Not necessarily though we believe deeply in the liberal arts and I mean not just the humanities but also the sciences; the liberal arts writ large. We absolutely believe that this is one way to educate students to be prepared for a future thats very uncertain because we do not know what the jobs are going to be for the future so we want to teach students how to think, be critical and exible and how to solve problems. But we are not limited to liberal arts because with AIIMs we are very interested in its trauma centre and we want our students to have the opportunity to come here. They are just doing miracles at AIIMs and we would like our students to have that experience. Wed also like to have students from AIIMs coming to Michigan. We want it to be both ways. It has to be mutually interesting. If its just one way it wont work. So our interest is not limited and we have tried to pick the places that we think can have the most robust collaborations. We dont sign a lot of MOUs but once we are in we are all in. Our goal is to do those that are going to be benecial for both parties where we have faculty interest and student interest. Thats why we have picked the ones that we have.
January-February 2014 EDUTeCH
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INSIDE 43 | British Campuses Debate Ways to Balance Freedom of Speech and Religious Sensitivities 46 | Psychological Counseling Goes Online for Students at U of Florida
P
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Allowing debate: Some institutions can be timid in defending controversial discussions on the campus
olitically charged ideas are a mainstay on many campuses. So is the controversy they provoke. When handled poorly, such incidents trace a familiar arc: Initial expression begets umbrage, which spurs real or perceived overreaction, followed by vows to better handle highly charged disagreements the next time. A sociology professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder recently had to ward off administrators concerns that her in-classskit about sex workerswould offend students. In October, students at Brown University ended a guest lecture by Raymond W. Kelly, who was then New York Citys police chief, bybooing himoff the stage. Thorny exchanges in classes and on campus can provide great educational value if guided skillfully, according to professors in disciplines like communications, education, history, and political science who lead programs described as including difficult dialogues, transformational conversations, or deliberative democracy. Such efforts have emerged as examples of how higher education can foster a stronger sense of civic engagement in students. If they can learn to carefully listen to and consider opposing views, the thinking goes, they will mature into citizens who can deliberate and nd common ground in fractious times. But such conversations often prove difcult for faculty members to carry out and can be risky, especially for those without tenure. Some institutions can be timid in defending controversial discussions on the campus. Those institutions may nd them-
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Several students, including football players selves less able to advance the cause of knowland residents of football-crazy hometowns, edge, says Caryn McTighe Musil, director of initially ascribed responsibility to the athletes civic learning and democracy at the Associaalone but found themselves growing uncomtion of American Colleges and Universities. fortable, Mr. Kurtz says. Weve always had to exist with this contraQuestions arose: Was there something to dictory commitment to inquiry, says Ms. Sign up for a free weekly the case against football culture? We were Musil, whose organization in 2012 published a electronic newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education at stopped in our tracks, Mr. Kurtz says. When report, A Crucible Moment:College Learning Chronicle.Com/Globalnewsletter the class session ended, he told his students and Democracys Future, that challenged colThe Chronicle of Higher Education is that they could no longer retreat to bland leges to assume a greater role in civic engagea US-based company with a weekly agreements to disagree. ment. The association will offer more than a newspaper and a website updated Such interactions can be particularly fruitful dozen sessions on the subject at its annual daily, at Global.Chronicle.com, that cover all aspects of university life. when they happen with people from outside meeting in late January. With over 90 writers, editors, and the campus. We are committed to asking tough quescorrespondents stationed around Students in some political-science courses at tions and to exposing students to multiple the globe, The Chronicle provides Wake Forest University, for example, have points of view, some of which they detest, timely news and analysis of academdebated the merits of Social Security with she says. ic ideas, developments and trends. senior citizens in Winston-Salem, N.C. Brown is still guring out how to respond to At rst, the students favored privatizing the the disdain expressed so loudly by some of its program, while the elderly residents defended students. One remedy will be an effort to train it as is, says Katy J. Harriger, a professor of political science. She faculty members in moderating difcult conversations and to guided the discussion, following ground rules to discourage work with student groups to sponsor constructive dialogues interruptions and generalizations. Participants were asked to outside of class, says Liza Cariaga-Lo, associate provost for acaidentify common ground and areas of disagreement. demic development and diversity. By the end, Ms. Harriger says, nuance had crept in. The stuIn the wake of the Ray Kelly incident, I think we all came to dents saw the need to preserve the safety net; the older particirecognize that we often dont come into these situations prepants acknowledged the value of means-testing and worried pared to be able to talk to one other about issues that divide us, about the debt being passed to future generations. she says. A university is, in fact, the place where we should be having these conversations.
Rupture point
Advocates for facilitating constructive conversations about controversial subjects cite the educational benets of the experience. Such arguments also tend to be made in support of liberal education and engagement on issues of diversity. Like liberal education, civic learning is promoted as helping students wrestle with messy problems that have no clearly dened answers, a skill that will help them as voters when they evaluate policy trade-offs. It is also a skill that many employers say they value. Participating in difcult dialogues about politics or values is thought to spur a healthful cognitive disjunction in students, which causes them to take a fresh look at their unexamined viewsmuch the way that substantive conversations about race and ethnicity have been shown to improve criticalthinkingskills. Jeffrey B. Kurtz, an associate professor of communication at Denison University, calls the moment of dissonance a rupture point. One such moment happened this past fall, when students in his course on rhetoric, sports, and culture proposed discussing the notorious rape by two high-school football players, and humiliation in social media, of a girl in Steubenville, Ohio. The Denison students debated to what extent blame should be placed on football culture.
Political or partisan?
While a classroom can be a good place to cultivate the skills needed to carry out difcult dialogues, that environment also has shortcomings. Classrooms are inherently inauthentic laboratories for democracy, Ms. Harriger and Jill J. McMillanwroteinDeliberation and the Work of Higher Education,published by the Kettering Foundation in 2008. The power dynamic between teacher and student often shortcircuits any pretext that equals are freely exchanging ideas. And professors who have developed expertise in a subject are not always good at getting out of the way of a discussion or at being neutral moderators. Above all, such discussions are very hard to conduct effectively, says Nancy L. Thomas, who directs the initiative for the study of higher education at Tufts Universitys Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. We know that discussion-based teaching gets results. To avoid it is bad teaching, she says. But we dont do it, because we dont really know how. One stumbling block for many professors is confusion between the political and the partisan. Examining the power dynamics underlying given issues is often thought to be acceptable; advocating for ideological positions is not. Writing inThe Chroniclein 2003, the outspoken professor Stanley Fishwarnedfaculty members not to teach peace or war
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Thorny exchanges in classes and on campus can provide great educational value if guided skillfully
or freedom or obedience or diversity or uniformity or nationalism or antinationalism or any other agenda. Of course, he continued, they can and should teach about such topicssomething very different from urging them as commitmentswhen they are part of the history or philosophy or literature or sociology that is being studied. Many professors avoid any charged discussions. About half of all faculty members report that they often or very often encourage their students to discuss local, state, or national issues, according to the Faculty Survey of Student Engagement. Twenty percent urge their students to organize other people to work on such issues. Part-time lecturers and instructors report that they encourage their students to discuss and engage on political issues less frequently than their tenured peers do, according to the survey. Many faculty members who seek to facilitate difcult conversations try to help students sort through their own reasoning and its consequences, says Richard M. Battistoni, a professor of political science at Providence College. What were talking about is getting students to be more effective citizens based on their own values. When faculty members push students to examine their thinking, they need to do so respectfully, says Tuftss Ms. Thomas. She describes how a professor asking a question about, say, the role of religion in public life might step into a mineeld. Suppose the faculty member asks why a student feels that the teachings of a religious leader should inuence public policy. The words might seem open and nonjudgmental, but the tone might be perceived as hostile. You can put your hand on your hip or glare at them, she says. The inference is there. Instead, she says, a professor could ask a student to explore why he or she is suggesting that position, or to share personal examples that support the statement. What youre really doing is expressing interest in peeling the onion instead of expressing interest in taking on that view, Ms. Thomas says.
When faculty members push students to examine their thinking, they need to do so respectfully
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British campuses debate ways to balance freedom of speech and religious sensitivities
British universities are wondering if segregating audiences is the practice they should follow when orthodox speakers visit BY AISHA LAbI
ritains leading highereducation association recently sought to offer guidance on a tricky question: When a university invites an orthodox religious speaker to campus, should it allow the audience to be segregated by gender? Universities UK, which represents the vice chancellors of British universities, responded with a conditional yes. While the advice was buried deep inside a mundanely titled report, External Speakers in Higher Education Institutions, released in November, it triggered a restorm of public criticism, with students, academics, and ultimately even the prime minister weighing in. The episode is the latest in a series of recent incidents that have ignited a debate on British campuses about how to balance freedom of speech with religious sensitivities. While issues of freedom of speech and religion are familiar on campuses in the United States, public universities in Britain have been struggling with them in recent years, with some saying that public displays of religion have increased, along with pressure to cater to religious groups. Others say that a growing atmosphere of Islamaphobia has emboldened critics of religion to target innocent expressions of faith in the guise of combating extremism.
Gender Balance: Some believe male and female students sitting separately at sensitive talks is voluntary, others see it as an imposed manifestation of culture
You can really feel the tension in Britain right now, said Lawrence M. Krauss, a professor of physics at Arizona State University. In March, Mr. Krauss, an outspoken atheist, was to take part in a debate on Islam or Atheism: Which Makes More Sense? held by an Islamic group at University College London. When he arrived, he said, the organizers were attempting to separate audience members by gender, and he threatened to leave. The event proceeded as planned after the group, Islamic Education and Research Academy, dropped overt efforts to have the sexes sit separately, which it later said
would have been on an entirely voluntary basis. For Mr. Krauss, the episode highlighted what he views as a troubling trend in Britain to try and impose some elements of Islamic law within groups, even in public spaces. Universities UK sought in part to help clarify how institutions should navigate events like the one at University College London. Its report included a hypothetical case study in which a representative of an ultra-orthodox religious group has been invited to speak. University administrators have approved the event, but the speaker then asks for the audience to be segregated.
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Those opposed to segregation are entitled to lawful protest and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues
The report said there were several factors to take into consideration, including whether everyone attending would be required to adhere to the request. eron, who said that the guidance should be urgently reviewed, Ms. Dandridges organization withdrew the case study, saying it would work to clarify the position when gender segregation is voluntary. For Chris Moos, a graduate student at the London School of Economics and Political Science and secretary of the universitys student Atheist, Secularist, and Humanist Society, the organizations advice, and the reaction it generated, has focused a much-needed spotlight on growing campus tensions between freedom of expression and religion.
Be mindful
Ultimately, if imposing an unsegregated seating area in addition to the segregated areas contravenes the genuinely held religious beliefs of the group hosting the event, or those of the speaker, the institution should be mindful to ensure that the freedom of speech of the religious group or speaker is not curtailed unlawfully, it said. Those opposed to segregation are entitled to engage in lawful protest against segregation, and could be encouraged to hold a separate debate of the issues. Those lines soon drew widespread public attentionand growing outrageas bloggers, commentators, and the news media picked up on the story. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, initially stood by the organizations guidance, saying in an appearance onToday,the BBCs main national morning radio show, that in circumstances where the audience is saying that they prefer to sit in different groups, then we are saying that universities should respect their views providingand this is criticalproviding that there is no disadvantage to either men or women. She added, That element of voluntary choice is really critical, its not a question of imposing views on students here. Within days, however, following critical comments by Prime Minister David Cam-
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Guidance: The University designed the Therapist Assisted Online programme to help students battle anxiety
f Three years ago, facing a particularly acute demand for services, the Counseling and Wellness Center at the University of Florida managed to add four full-time positions to the existing 33. That bought the director, Sheryl A. Benton, and her colleagues just two weeks without a waiting list for appointments. Concluding that she would never hire her way out of the problem, Ms. Benton set about to expand the centers capacity by developing an online psychotherapy program, an approach long used and studied in Australia, among other countries. Therapist Assisted Online, or TAO, began at Florida this past fall. Designed specically for students battling anxietya priEDUTeCH January-February 2014
mary mental-health issue on college campusesit is the rst research-supported program of its kind in the United States, Ms. Benton believes. In the pilot program, 26 students treated under TAO showed more improvement, calculated using a system called Behavioral Health Measure-20, than 26 participants in the in-person grouptherapy sessions at the counseling center. The students treated under TAO also made more progress than about 700 students receiving individual in-person therapy. The results blew me away, not to mention the fact that it stunned all of my counselors, who I think are still trying to come to terms with what happened, Ms. Benton says.
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Ofcials are exploring the licensing potential of the program, he says, although the priority is to produce an effective, replicable treatment rather than a profitable business. TAO and other types of online psychotherapy are inappropriate for seriously ill patients, counselors at the University of Florida and others say. Moreover, the regulation of mental-health professionals in the United States is done at the state level, creating geographic limitations even though the treatment is done online. There are interjurisdictional problems, says John C. Norcross, a researcher and professor of psychology at the University of Scranton. If you launch a website in Pennsylvania and the therapist you are talking to is in Florida and the patient is Louisiana, it is a regulatory and malpractice nightmare. Where the licensing and regulation of mental-health professionals is done at the national level, such as in Australia and Britain, online psychotherapy has been in use for years, Mr. Norcross says. Nevertheless, TAO promises clear advantages for mental-health professionals in higher education and their patients, experts say. They cite time and cost savings, the exible and discreet nature of delivery, and the potential scalability. The weekly video conference in TAO takes up less than a third of the time spent in face-to-face therapy, freeing up counselors to work with individuals who are more seriously ill. Students in TAO programs can complete the treatment modules as their schedules permit. The model can help temper the stigma surrounding counseling-center visits, especially for students from cultures in which discussing personal or family troubles remains taboo, mental-health professionals say. And it has the potential to expand access. When you get right down to it, psychotherapy in the U.S. has always been a luxury for the afuent, Ms. Benton says. If you have good-enough insurance or enough money, you can get really effective treatment, and if you dont, you are pretty much out of luck. If the tools that we have now in the digital age can begin to match what we do with face-to-face therapy, she continues, this could be a social-justice issue that brings effective treatment to all kinds of people who have little or no access today. Therapist Assisted Online comes at a time when the mentalhealth landscape on campuses is growing increasing complex. In the 2013 National Survey of College Counseling Centers, 95 percent of directors at four-year institutions reported an increase in students with severe psychological problems. Eighty-eight percent reported a steady increase in the number of students arriving on the campus already on psychiatric medication. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death (after auto accidents) among college students. When I rst started this work, the most common things we would see were things like homesickness, roommate issues, that kind of stuff, says Mr. Pollard, of George Mason. You dont see that anymore. That gets handled at the residence-hall level. We see people who have profound depression, people who have debilitating anxiety. We have people who are bipolar, people who are actively schizophrenic. Its an entirely different can of worms.
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26 students treated under TAO showed more improvement than 26 others in the group-therapy in-person sessions
The director is the rst to point out the limitations of the pilot. Both the student patients and the counselors self-selected, indicating a certain level of motivation and comfort with new technology. The pool of participants was small. Other research studies show that online patients experience results equal to those of in-person patients. Still, the model could spell major change for mental-health services in higher education, where the number of students in need of treatment and the severity of diagnoses has climbed steadily during the past decade, according to professionals in the field. Within a couple of years, I think, most college campuses are going to be offering this, and it wont just be college campuses, says Jeffrey W. Pollard, a consultant on campus threat assessment who is a former director of the counseling center at George Mason University. People are still going to want to come in and be across the room from the person that they are working with, but there are other people who are going to be ne looking at a computer monitor and talking to it. TAO consists of seven interactive treatment modules meant to be completed during a seven-week period. It includes assessments of current symptoms and level of function, as well as cognitive-behavorial and mindfulness exercises. Student patients participate in 10- to 15-minute video consultations with their counselors once a week, and receive daily encouraging text messages. The online-treatment program falls between self-help and traditional therapy, Ms. Benton says. The relationship between the counselor and the patient remains paramount. The weekly video consultations and the content of the modules work in concert. Counselors monitor progress, and layers of risk management are in place. Participating students must provide emergency contact information and authorize the counseling center to use it, if necessary.
Jurisdictional issues
Much of the technical work is being done within the E-Learning, Technology, and Creative Services division of the universitys College of Education. Glenn E. Good, dean of the college and a licensed psychologist, estimates that the university has spent about $200,000 to develop TAO.
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