Dr. Sudhir Jain was the first speaker in the latest lecture series initiated by IIT Kanpur, Making of a University, in which distinguished academicians are invited to share their vision which has been instrumental in the establishment of the eminent educational institutes of India. The lecture was held on 27 November 2014 in the Outreach Auditorium.
For those who do not know, Prof. Jain is a faculty member of the Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur. He went on a leave in June 2009, on a journey to set up an academic institution from scratch, serving as the director of IIT Gandhinagar, one of the eight new IITs established in 2011.
Prof. Jain started with the recollection of his golden days at IIT Kanpur, the institute which he joined as a “young boy” of 25 years with hardly any understanding of the real world and of the complexities of life. ‘I grew and learnt there, succeeded in many things while failed in others, where people cheered me up when I did well and supported me when I did not’, quoting his facebook status, prior to the talk.
At the time the new IITs were being set up, Prof. Jain received 4 mails, including one from the then director, Prof.S.G.Dhande, requesting him to submit his resume for the role of director of one of the new IITs. Though disappointed by the decision of setting up of new IITs, at a time when the older ones themselves needed a lot of attention to fix many diverse problems which were preventing our rise to the international scenario, a 5-week introspection led him to the realisation that the older IITs will anyway march ahead, considering that establishment of new IITs is imminent, he thought that leading one will be a really exciting journey.
950 Students, 88 faculty members, 100 staff members – That is what constitutes the IIT Gandhinagar family. They were allotted a beautiful 400 acre land, on the Sabarmati banks, on July 30, 2012, and in the summer of 2015, they will move to that place from the temporary campus they are currently running in.
Within a few years of inception, IIT GN has incubated three companies, 10-15% of graduates are pursuing a PhD from top US Schools and 3 of them are continuing their education at IIT GN itself, significant of the trust the students have in their institute. Few students have gone ahead and joined TISS, NID, Shrishti and were well encouraged by the institute for the same, as they believe that students should chase their passion. One-third of their students graduated with an international experience, as the institute facilitates the process of grabbing an international research internship (it makes no sense that a student wastes time sending over 2000 mails for an internship). They have filed 7 US, and 1 Indian patent.
“We will train you for your last job, not your first one.”
IIT Gandhinagar hires only the most outstanding candidates of a field as faculties, regardless of the discipline. Endowed with immense freedom, the faculties are provided high support and in return, the institute expects highly from them. The unique disciplinary diversity witnesses a professor of Chemistry teaching a course of Sociology.
One of the peculiar things about IIT GN is their 5 week foundation programme for the freshmen with an aim to foster creativity, leadership, societal awareness, values, ethics, engagement in sports and physical activities. While majority of Indians did not know about Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Laureate, 2014, the students of IIT GN had interacted with him in the foundation programme. When someone pointed out that the students may lose on the initial curriculum due to the lengthy orientation period, Prof. Jain said, “How does it matter whether I learnt ‘that’ 20 percent portion of a particular course? What matters is whether I learnt life-skills or not in my initial days”
Innovating in the undergraduate curriculum, IIT GN has compulsory courses in Biology, Design & Innovation, World Civilization, along with 8 HSS courses as a requirement of the engineering degree. They have a comprehensive Viva Voce for all students, where in 3 people meet every student once in a semester and talk about their life at the institute, academics and career.
In his charismatic tone. Dr. Sudhir made it clear, “I want my students to either be entrepreneurs or professors, because that is what contributes back to the society. Working for a multinational company is not what I see them pursuing.” No doubts that 3 companies, namely Grid Ants, Doopica and Tinker Tank have been started by the students of IIT GN
There is zero tolerance for things no one approves of. Academic dishonesty, including proxy attendance, is strictly dealt with. Students have been suspended for a semester for looking into their peers exam copies during the exam. Bullying another student or any kind of financial misconduct is not acceptable.
A distinguished feature of this institute, is that it treats the students as adults, responsible for their well being or otherwise. No grade sheets are sent to home. No restriction on entry to girls or boys hostel for either gender. In short: ‘It is your life. You are welcome to either do wonders out of it or make a mess out of it.
“We will provide you everything you need, but we can’t provide everything you want”
The temporary campus of IIT Gandhinagar has all the facilities for a sustainable lifestyle. The laboratories are collaborative, not differentiating between different ‘sects’ of scholars, a connected campus with a central mess and day-care centres for the infants of the female staff of the campus are some of the unique features of the institute infrastructure.
Remaining true to the spirit of outreach, IIT Gandhinagar runs NYASA which primarily aims to support and educate the children of the migrant construction workers in and around campus. This humble initiative includes adequate temporary housing equipped with RO water facility and toilet system.
“We are not in a hurry to be a new IIT. Once old, you are old forever. We are enjoying the fact that we are young.”
Setting up a new organization comes up with challenges, and IIT GN is no exception. There is a mindset of low expectation from all stakeholders, on the grounds that it is a new IIT, and that if it aims to be a world class institute, it is a technical institue in a developing nation. Lack of self esteem in quite a many of undergraduate students, lack of mid-career faculty, alumni body and academic administrators are the other key issues on the chart.
Under the leadership of Dr.Sudhir, IIT GN is marching ahead, ready to face all these challenges. They are aiming for internationalization of the institute, close linkage with the industries and establish a culture of sustained excellence. He rightly summed up the mood of the institute: “IIT GN is not a place for unhappy people”
Written by Samarth Bansal and Bhanu Pratap Singh Tanwar
