VIEW POINTS

The responsibilities of faculty members at IIT Kanpur are complex. Primarily, they are expected to be innovative teachers and brilliant researchers. In addition, the fine print in their job description includes, ". . . and to shoulder any other responsibility as called upon by the Head of the Institute." Under this clause, faculty members may be served with "office orders" to steer activities, which may not be to their taste. Fresh incumbents appear to be particularly vulnerable in this regard.

There is a need for greater clarity about the role a faculty member is expected to play. Should faculty members participate in administrative/committee work? If faculty members choose not to do such work, who will?

In this issue of DIRECTIONS, two senior faculty members of this Institute opine on whether faculty members should participate in committee work. Some important insights emerge from their viewpoints. Firstly, much of the committee work is avoidable if greater trust is placed in the capabilities of the non-academic staff at this Institute. And secondly, norms may be necessary to limit the amount of committee work being handled by each faculty member, particularly to check the overloading of a few faculty members with "non-productive" academic work.

Readers are invited to respond to the views expressed here. Responses will be published in the subsequent issue(s) of DIRECTIONS. We hope that this will be the beginning of healthy, constructive debates on matters of common concern.

There is consensus among educators in higher technical and scientific education that the primary and major commitment of faculty should be to teaching and generation of new knowledge. Teaching and research are, indeed, the raison d'être of the faculty. Whatever else they do should not come in the way of these primary duties. Having stated this, we also note that faculty members are increasingly called upon to contribute to various other activities related to their professional expertise and to the goals and needs of their institution. Thus they may be called upon to be members of various committees at the institutional, national and sometimes even international levels, to act as advisors and consultants to government agencies or industry, to participate in the activities of professional bodies, to contribute to continuing education programs, student welfare and cultural and intellectual life of students on campus, to participate in the selection of students, to building instructional and research laboratories and facilities, libraries, etc. There is widespread agreement among educators of the importance of faculty involvement in academic administration and that the faculty should have control over the infrastructure having direct bearing on teaching and research, necessitating some level of involvement in administrative arrangements for these matters. The main problem is how can faculty time be utilized for these 'ancillary' activities without putting their primary commitment to teaching and research to jeopardy.

Collective decision making through committees is ubiquitous. This is a major feature of modern civilization. Though the advantages of this system are clear, there are also disadvantages. Nobody's neck is on the block. Committees are round, ball-like entities without necks; some say without heads too. All too often, at the end of a meeting there is a feeling among members that several hours were spent over issues which would have been decided in minutes had there been a single individual to make decisions. Focus gets lost frequently and extraneous matters, not relevant to the topic under discussion, are brought in. There is a tendency in some individuals to make long and pompous speeches, wasting the precious time of their colleagues. Meetings are often long-drawn affairs. They are sometimes 'adjourned' for lack of time after many hours of 'discussion' and cups of tea to continue on another date. Many active and productive faculty members feel that it is a waste of time to work on committees. Conversely, there are individuals who like to be on committees. This gives them a feeling of contributing in an important way to the functioning of the institute.

The problem perhaps is not with committees but with our attitudes and how we function in them. Several things can be done to make the decision making process through committees fast, efficient and enjoyable. One is sensitizing and educating faculty through internal seminars and written material in the art of committee work to help them develop proper attitudes and skills. The other is to develop a healthy respect for rules, regulations and procedures and proper documentation of things that matter. The third is improvement in the quality of infrastructure support for decision-makers.

There should, definitely, be a limit on the amount of committee work a faculty member is called upon to do. However, it is difficult to come up with norms for this. In any case it is desirable to avoid utilizing faculty for committee work not directly related to their professional life unless there are specific justifications for doing so.

S. S. Prabhu

[S. S. Prabhu is currently an AICTE Emeritus Fellow at IIT Kanpur. He retired as Professor in Electrical Engineering in 1998. During his 27 year tenure in IIT Kanpur, he was the Dean of Faculty Affairs (1994-96) and Head of the Department of Electrical Engineering (1982-85). He has also been the Chairman of the Campus School Management Committee, and served on the Senate Committee on Norms for Faculty Strength, Space Committee, and various undergraduate and postgraduate departmental committees.]

We can differentiate between three kinds of committees: academic, civic and administrative. I suppose a faculty member must serve on academic committees, because if he does not, who would. All academic matters (including student governance), I believe, are part and parcel of faculty responsibility. Civic committees require our membership not as faculty members but as residents of the campus. I don't believe there is much controversy regarding it. It is the last kind that is troublesome. We seem to be members of too many administrative committees: promotion committees for the staff, inquiry committees, budgetary committees, convocation committees, even JEE committee. It appears to me that the major reason why this is so is because in this institute and many other such institutes in the country the faculty is the administration. If we believe that power goes along with administration, and we undermine our administrative cadre by not letting it develop, by labelling it as incompetent, or by making it feel insignificant, we better pay the price that goes with the exercise of power.

The only way we can reduce our committee work-load is by letting the administrative set up do the administration, and by not believing that it is only the faculty with which the interest of the Institute, the academics or even the whole country is safe, and that only it knows what is right.

Vijay Gupta

[Vijay Gupta is currently a Professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at IIT Kanpur. He is also the Head of the T.V. Centre of the Institute. He has been Chairman, JEE in 1998 and 1999 and the Dean of Academic Affairs during 1994-96. In addition, he has been the Chairman of the Health Centre Users' Committee and has served as the Warden of the students' hostel. He joined IIT Kanpur as a faculty member in 1973.]

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