HiEd Log

A one year old institution planning a Higher Education Leadership Summit is not the rarest of possibilities, but not a common one. All the more so when that baby-HEI happens to be a self financed Institution. The idea was with me at the very start of the institution, even though it was shared with the institution leadership only after a couple of months hesitation. Institutional leadership can carry a different connotation: an institution that leads other institutions through it practices, processes and procedures. The ACAS vision had this thought of leadership embedded in its DNA, the idea of leading the leaders. AHELS was another serious push towards the realisation of this goal.  The plan  Hosting a Summit of the Higher Education Leaders with focus on a theme of current relevance was the early thought. The initial drop of the idea for sure was greeted with raised eyebrows and subtle expressions of incomprehension by the institutional leadership. To be fair, the chemistry b...

 "What might it be like if every student on the planet had access to an artificially intelligent personal tutor: an AI capable of writing alongside the student; an AI that students could debate any topic with; an AI that fine-tuned a student’s inherent strengths and augmented any gaps in learning; an AI that engaged students in new and powerful ways of understanding science, technology, engineering, and mathematics; an AI that gave students new ways of experiencing art and unlocking their own creativity; an AI that allowed for students to engage with history and literature like never before?" Khan's Academy and Salman Khan are familiar names among those who keep updated on blended learning and integration of technology in education. His book 'Brave New Words' (2024), argues how AI Tutors like Khan Academy's 'Khanmigo' can revolutionise education and why that's a good thing. Brave New Words make a passionate plea for responsible integration of AI ...

As one idea breeds another, one programme necessitates another, there are many threads which led naturally to the birth of ALISS. Al Shifa International Student Seminar (ALISS) is, at one end, one more event to put the learner at the heart of academic things at ACAS. On the other, it is one more novel venture to let the learners take ownership of their learning. If there's one idea from which the ALISS naturally grew, it is the Invited Student Talks. There are a number of other academic tributaries which finally flowed into ALISS like Project Prize, Project Quality Cell and Publication Wing. ALISS fit perfectly into the ecosystem of application-centred learning which we promoted.  The Plan  Invited Student Talks were introduced with the idea of offering genuinely challenging opportunities to the students to perform to their strength. Though initially we took speakers who fit our bill when it was an English Department initiative, later we upgraded the same to the institution le...

When an idea you have floated has been adopted by many and when the term has been around for a while, it is usual for it to be treated as another mundane act. The question, 'what's big deal about it?', too can be raised. Though there is a real divide separating the name-dropping and actual performance, it is hard to single out the action from a mere poster these days. This is true about invited Student Talks too. It is actually a strong why-not mindset that drives innovation everywhere. The catalyst to creativity is the urge to crack the existing hard-formed, tradition-cemented templates with the why-not kick. The idea of introducing an Invited Student Talk Series was the outcome of such a why-not thought. The Plan If there can be Invited Talks delivered by the Faculty and Subject Experts, why can't there be talks delivered by the students invited for the purpose? The crop of youngsters, who have enrolled in our colleges and universities though have access to informa...

One core characteristic of ACAS was it's incessant effort to lend meaningful experiences to the learners. Placing studied emphasis on involving learners and providing them opportunities in areas where they were often neglected, the college tried to make it more experiential than many others around. A number of initiatives which we came up with has the word 'student' prominently prefixed to it. This occasionally makes people ask why should this be as educational institutions are expected to focus on students. If really that had that been the case, there would never have been an expression like 'student-centred'. Invited Student Talks, International Student Seminars and the like were aimed to lay the stress heavily on students and put them in the lead. 'afterwords, the Annual Students E-journal',  too was launched to let the spotlight fall on them.  The Plan  With Project Quality Cell on the one side, Project Prize on the other and the Publication Wing on yet ...

Ever since a minor research project was included in the curriculum of undergraduate programs offered by the HEIs, the mandatory student project (the mandatoriness was relaxed later to make it a student choice, I understand) which forms part of the final semester has been a matter of more concern and less praise. Like many moves to bring in added skills and capabilities to the learner and faculty members have been tamed to fit the work ethics of the supervising faculty, the project idea too has been reduced to a printed long essay with embellishments of hard cover and acknowledgements, thinly spread across so many pages. Since a good student project at the undergraduate level can truly enrich the possibilities of better higher studies and careers, we decided to launch the UG Project Prize at ACAS. This was actually modelled on the Dissertation Award which I introduced at Unity Women's College a decade back for the best Postgraduate Dissertations in English at the state level, which ...

What features next here is an apparently pedestrian entry called Blog. Blogs have been around for long and in a sense their heyday is done with. But the part it can play in promoting skills and feeding growth among the faculty members and learners is still big.  Like many of the technological gadgets, the blog too has a very productive part to play if used wisely. Both student and teacher blogs were part of my scheme of things to inculcate and improve reading and writing skills among them. Interestingly, when I look back, I realise that the teacher blog has worked better than the students blogs!  The Plan  T he plan was ambitious. Many of my plans were like that. You invest energy in an idea and push it forward. Then there is a stage when you breath so much passion into it that the idea begins to take ownership over you and guide you as it kind of trusts it's master. Make the faculty contribute regularly to a blog: that was the simple, original plan. Most of us who are in...

  Most of the good practices implemented at Al Shifa College of Arts and Science (ACAS) were not isolated, scattered ones, but practices which add to the cohesive vision we were approximating. All arms of the institutional practices fit in to the various threads of the mission statements and aid the realisation of the same. The idea of a Newsletter is neither new or challenging when seen from afar, though the actual execution is a different ball game, the hardest part being bringing it out on time! The Rationale I have introduced newsletters in all the institutions I have involved with in a leadership role. ACAS was just another instance. But what was achieved in my latest leadership outing at ACAS was by far the best because it was beautifully streamlined at all stages and it was brought out regularly and on time. The basic reason for the establishment of a monthly e-newsletter of course is to communicate to the world outside what is happening at the College. Since documentation...

  'Publish and perish' can be an arguable reframing of 'publish or perish' aphorism as low-quality publishing can boomerang. The rat race to have publications in one's credit even when one is neither interested, trained or willing to publish these days is forcing us to attempt the act. The teachers are expected to have good language skills and academic writing capabilities, even though the years spent in colleges and universities may not have given many of us those skill sets. This has a telling impact on the work the faculty members do at the HEIs. With research projects becoming an integral component of the student lives in HEIs, how can they teach what they don't know, forget their competence to publish their research articles? The thought of establishing a Publication Wing at Al Shifa College of Arts and Science (ACAS) arose against the backdrop of such thoughts.  The Rationale It is very ambitious for a small, newly founded degree college to aspire that hig...