Can We Do Things Differently?

 Most of the time, the answer is yes. But we don't. 

Teaching- there are many ways to teach so that students enjoy the process, and learn better. But we don't try hard enough..

Improving Admissions in Institutions- many untried ways exist. Paying commissions to agents is not one of them.

Recruiting faculty- Going out to meet Ph.D. scholars instead of just advertising.. how many have tried this? I have, with some success. At a new university..

Motivating Faculty as a leader- having a tea and a chat with them regularly helps. Have a chai room in your institute if you don't. 

Spending Your Time- in a way that you enjoy it, doing things you like, minimising things you don't like to do (visiting govt. offices is one I don't), and so on.. listening to the radio doesn't cost anything, for example.

Review of the Last Few Months of 2025

 First three or four months of 2025 were spent in retirement- turned out to be a break. Because by end- April, I was back working full time, in a new place. JIS University, Kolkata, a 10- year-old private university. The pluses- an established university, unlike Prestige, my last workplace where I was the Founding VC.

Another plus was that the top management team including the VC and the other Pro VC, was new. So we could view things differently.

Of course, legacy issues were there- a closed loop view of West Bengal for admissions and some of the placements. Affecting diversity and output, to a certain extent. The campuses being spread out also affected coordination at times. 

Some achievements during this period- improving processes, accountability and governance structure within the university. Establishing a structure with new Deans for Research, and Student/alumni interaction, for example, will have a long term impact. Regular discussions on how to improve diversity in admissions have been taking place, with some actionable plans from the team.

A couple of good FDPs and conferences have also happened, across departments. Student participation in placements is looking up, and so is the faculty participation. Ph. D. admissions in most departments have a good demand. Admissions in B.Sc. Agriculture have gone up. Entrepreneurship related events and cultural activities have picked up steam. An MoU with a Malaysian Tech university (APU) has been signed.

The Medical college under JIS University has got permission to run Post Graduate courses recently. The brand is bound to make its presence felt in many ways, beyond the state. 

Work Travels in Delhi and Maharashtra

 We had a rather hectic week, first at an admission fair in Pragati Maidan, Delhi. We met a few prospective students and counseled them to apply to Prestige University, for an MBA or 5 year IMP. That's a BBA plus MBA.

Then, we met a few corporates, among whom was Ms. Silky Mittal of Nestle, who is on our advisory board. 

That's her, in the pic above. She's a Category Head in Foods. Was in charge of Digital Marketing/E commerce earlier. An alum of IIM Calcutta. We also met some alums of Jaipuria, NOIDA, where my Dean worked earlier and Prof. JD Singh had been the founding director. JD Singh was our Marketing prof. at IIMB. Pic below with Vasundhara and Gaurav Tripathi, at BN group, which is into Agri-products.

We then moved to Pune, and met Barclays HR team at Kharadi, and visited a couple of Agricultural colleges in Nagar and Nashik. More on these later.

Parenting in India

Are you admission-savvy? This is a million-dollar question to which you have to answer a "yes" if you want to be a successful Indian parent. From K.G. to P.G and beyond, you have to learn to be a submissive moron with a generous bent of mind, to be able to succeed in the eternal quest for admissions for your kid, something like the fired-up Knights of the Round Table of ancient times. New times, new avatars! Also, a strong belief in God helps, coz otherwise, whom do you curse in case the quest fails?
Therefore, to find out if you have what it takes, answer the question above. And thou shalt know.