Putting forward student issues to the highest authorities on campus
JC: We were not able to interview any of the Presidential candidates.
They are now clearly aware about what we expect from them. Very simple, honest, transparent with the students and with the administration. That’s the way forward. Honesty I’ve made it very clear that they should not be corrupt. I said that for at least one year, if they set up the situation properly, then other people will start following them. They can change things completely because they are not here to just conduct the fest. There are other activities as well. There is no mention of any academic related issues (in their manifestos).
JC: Accountability is a big question mark for us.
There are three main things that must be followed. Transparency. Honesty. And accountability.
JC: We share a lot of things. Their answer is always “admin issues happened”, at least that was the case last year.
We’ve made it clear that if you are transparent with us, we are transparent with you. Whatever support you need, we are there.
JC: Another issue is the washrooms in the Old Academic blocks. New Academic block washrooms are fine. I think it is the new construction. It happened from 2016 to 2019.
It’s just plumbing issues. As of now we have a different kind of administrative structure. We have a senior general manager for estate management. We will take some more time. We are trying to fix it but everything has to be done in a proper way. It is a big system so the process should be streamlined. We are trying to fix this slowly and properly.
JC: This is something a lot of the student body has mentioned. The same vendor makes the food in ANC in the evening where we have to pay and they’re questioning the disparity. That is an issue of mass production. So if they can ensure quality I think most people here would be willing to pay.
For information, the next person(vendor) wants 190 rupees per day. So now we might spend almost 1 crore rupees on the new mess vendor. So from the student’s side, it’ll be 150 rupees. This will subsidize the cost for the students. But, if the vendor does well, maybe they will take up running messes on all campuses.
JC: Sir, maybe it is because of your office as director. There is a chance that they could be receptive to your input because you are in office.
Even as a normal faculty they used to be like that. For example we are giving a free coupon to many professors to go to different messes and have to come and give feedback to us. Different departments go to different messes. From every department, some faculty will be identified. They will serve them and they will also take feedback from them. If I go they treat me differently.
JC: This we did not mention last time. So the RO that is there in the LTC lobby. Is it fixed now? One of them is working I think while the other isn’t. So there is never water coming out of it. Also the water itself tastes vaguely rusty so I don’t think anyone gets their water from there. This is from a month back.
What we are consciously doing also is we are asking all the offices to avoid bottled water. They will have to get the water from the existing water coolers. Which also means they will also kind of fix it. We have started with our offices as an example, so that it will start penetrating to every other office for sustainability.Avoiding all single-use plastic is also something that we are consciously encouraging every office to do. Once we start using all these things automatically, they will find a way to fix it.
JC: I will suggest one more thing. Even the coolers that are there in the departmental blocks. Sometimes we go there. Sometimes the RO is not working over there also. Like the water is there, but it’s a bit off-tasting. So these I had tried in my first year. But lately I have stopped doing it. So maybe there can be just a check on whether the RO is working or not.
Recently I asked them to completely do everything in terms of every checklist they have submitted right now. Wherever we found gaps, we addressed it. The thing is some filters still are with the nano filter mechanism and some are with the RO mechanism. When you go with a nano filter mechanism, the taste will be a little odd. They only do some level of filtration for the kind of water quality that we have right now. So in a fixed manner if everything goes RO, the first impression of the taste will be good. But nano filters don’t take out too much of minerals. They will still try to have a slightly different taste is what is the understanding we have given them. But at some point when you don’t feel good you won’t consume.
JC: Sometimes in New Acad blocks, I think the plumbing does not work at least. Sometimes there are water leakages on the floor and the floor is wet.
It is getting fixed in the old acad block and I think the new acad block should be next. They are renovating it once again. The new academic block is leaky, I do agree.
JC: Because a lot of the times, the flushes do not work. Let’s say even if there is a cosmetic issue that is fine, but sometimes even the flush does not work for a few stalls or something. So, I think there is a big fundamental problem somewhere in the system.
A checklist is there. We will go by ownership and accountability on people, we will have to document these issues.
JC: It will take time as well. It is a big campus.
And another thing we promised last time (now Referring to Impartus).
We had actually made a committee of the HODS of the largest departments consciously because while in principle when we talked they had the same view as us.After the discussion with the faculty members, with more importance on the Computer Science, Economics, Finance departments, etc whose committee members were there and we had a larger interaction with many faculty members. Unfortunately, more than 80% of the faculty members were not very positive on continuing Impartus.
While we tried our best to do it, beyond a point, we were not able to convince our own colleagues. So, that is why while we have a different view, at some point we need to take the people along and we don’t push things, so the consensus building is taking time.
JC: What was the reason why 80% say no to Impartus, because these are the same professors who have been here for like the past 4-5 years at least I can assume.
They have been used to Impartus being part of the system. So, their lectures were being uploaded, mostly we were studying from their lectures as well right now. So, what was this sudden change?
We still have a struggle in the consensus building of getting people along to get convinced to say that this is something we open up to students.So, somewhere we would want to have this kind of a dialogue from the students, to have more professors on this topic, where they understand the student perspective of this site (Impartus) as well. So, that is the primary aspect we are trying to take along which today, is something that we are finding very very difficult.
JC: It will be very difficult for us to convince.
Yeah, it is not specifically you or something like this, time and time again you will find out on multiple occasions where we would possibly do this. So, if you ask me as a teacher, I would want to give all the resources to the student and it is for the student to decide in today’s time, how they want to use it ultimately for the purpose why they are here. In this digital world, we find it very restrictive in terms of access to content.
That is where it tends to become. Primarily the faculty was time and time again linking it to the students’ physical presence in the classroom.
I will come to your side and continue to do a lot of arguments. As I told you, I was the one who put in the proposal to start it.
JC: Yes, you had mentioned.
From there it went to other campuses as well. So, I was the one presenting it to the faculty members and trying to convince many people to initiate and sustain it for a long time in spite of a reasonable amount of resistance, from a group of faculty members as well because traditionally we have always been brought up in some sense. You have to go to the class, the teacher will tell you something and you go on.
So, many of them did also have the resistance of accepting this point. Students are not coming because the video lectures are there. That is the easier way of seeing it.
What different am I doing in the class other than what is there in the content? What are all the different pedagogies? As a teacher I am trained to make sure that they feel like they are missing out something if they are not in the classroom. As a teacher, I will have to think harder like that.
What about the handout thing? (Referring to increased linking of attendance to obtain Classroom Participation Marks)
JC: We let it be for the time being, as we had been approaching multiple divisions for several issues at the time.
Very well, the first thing that comes to our mind is implementing a feedback mechanism across all relevant divisions to address your issues. It will be anonymous on your end; at the same time, the faculty will know the students’ grievances.
JC: There was a way of informal feedback right now. We think a feedback page would do very well if it were anonymous.
Once we consciously collect the data. It also becomes easy for us to understand what is actually happening, and it should be on a single forum for multiple divisions. That is because there are many offices where students interact.
JC: Sir, can this be integrated into the ERP, similar to how we have student feedback for courses?
That will take some time. We have created a new office for digital application development. So, we are consciously trying to develop customized things exclusively, because if we want to do something in ERP, we want every campus to follow that model.Things would move faster with an office like that, and you could automate processes. This will be our priority, because we need this feedback to ensure these issues don’t repeat.
JC: We had done a thorough assessment of the academic guidelines, and we also mentioned this to you. Is there a clause regarding the 10% component thing?
The book of guidelines you have is outdated. We decided on these guidelines only this year.
JC: So, the new book will have the clause? Will it be shared with us soon?
This clause was finalized in August 2025. So if it is updated, it will be included in the new academic regulation. It should be. Otherwise, I would think the faculty is informed. It is AUGSD’s job to ensure everyone abides by it.
JC: So we just want to clarify. If it is linked to attendance, the max is 10%? Also, is there any upper cap you have kept on the amount of attendance?
Yes, it is 10%. No, that is left to the IC but the suggested number is 50%.
JC: I will be very open with you. The thing with attendance is that even though we do not want to go to a class, we are compelled to go, just put in our biometrics, and come back. So, essentially, the academic part is gone.
You put these points in. You shouldn’t come to class just for attendance. Why are we forcing such a culture here? It is not a part of BITS.
JC: We find workarounds for the attendance thing. So it is not incentivizing learning, it is incentivizing attendance.
So, as teachers, I think we should think very hard and find a better model.
JC: Will you be conducting a Director’s Open House? If not, how are you going about collecting feedback from the students?
That’s what we were thinking, because right now we’ve gone around to all the departments and were already discussing with them to understand how things are being operated. We have just completed a comprehensive review of them to understand their suggestions and develop a clear roadmap. We will also have a detailed discussion in a few weeks.
So, to understand where they are right now and which are the low-hanging areas where we can immediately spend time and fix those things. And then go into strategic thinking about priorities: what are all the things we need to fix?
And in summer as well, we will jot down all those things and start organizing them. Review it for the next semester. In the meantime, we are trying to make it more process-driven, with SOPs and all those things. So, it is more system-driven and more sustained.
JC: Can something be done to standardize grading department-wise? Even for DELS, when I asked my seniors which one I should take. I was interested in a particular one they told me not to take said DEL and to choose another one because I would easily get an A.
It’s very subjective because it’s based on relative grading. Speaking from the instructor’s point of view, grading is not a fixed formula. An instructor has certain expectations from the group of students so, naturally, the grading is going to be very relative. There are some guidelines for grading which are already printed on your paper.
From the instructor’s perspective, not many students are very serious in DELS. Some are doing it just for the sake of doing it, so the instructor may not be convinced that the student has really learned the course. In that case, they would definitely be very conservative in terms of the number of As or A-s.
There is also a mechanism where they present it in front of the faculty members and the department. They present the grading histogram and take different opinions into account and see if there is any bias. They take the views of their peers as well and that is when they sum it up. We also have some checks in the back- end to see if there is too much deviation and whether the grading is in line with the kind of students taking the course, and what they are actually learning. We have some metrics for that as well.
When we go, I will have a discussion with the department and we will share these concerns with them.
We are also consciously encouraging more project- based learning in our courses. We have five initiative points in this regard.
- We want to listen to faculty, students, and staff and then try to address their concerns as much as possible.
- For academic courses, we are planning to bring more project-based and experiential components into the courses
- For faculty who do a lot of research, we want to promote them to go for more research output.
- Administrative Structure: Here there are many issues, so usually in the management strategy how things get fixed is through something called a RACI Matrix. You have to tell somebody what is their primary role, what are their responsibilities, and what they are accountable for. You need to communicate and make these things clear. If they are doing a good job, that is fine. If these things are not happening well, we will identify where the problem is and tell them what needs to change. The accountability will come on the individual. We are trying to bring in process development as per ISO standards and that is something that we are going to initiate at the institute level. Once we do it for many offices, a lot of things will get more streamlined. For example, in the timetable division, the lady you spoke to is accountable for that, so these issues will come up.
- The sustainability aspect and having a carbon net- zero campus. How much more meaningfully we can co-exist in the sense of also trying to have a responsible process.
So, these five initiatives have been taken to serve the administration in departments, and faculty. We will make a strategy for the first year, third year, fourth year, etc and review it regularly. The chair said that for such projects, more infrastructure might be needed, and they’ll try to provide for it.
JC: Is there a way to make projects longer or more meaningful? Right now the process of working for a single semester doesn’t yield the maximum work, and a lot of potential is wasted.
This has been approved at the university level. So, from the next semester, you can continue working with the same faculty member on the same topic for 3 semesters and you will be incentivized for the same.
It will be three credits each semester, so nine credits in total. But, there are a lot of additional teams who are keen on research and will be able to take this up. You can also have a stipend at the end to complete it with a meaningful grade, as a motivation.
It is budgeted at 50,000 for 3 semesters. The idea is to support research. So, at the end of 3 semesters we would like to see a publication, some prototype, some patent or some kind of tangible content. And if you complete 3 semesters we are also looking into adding that entire project-work into the certificate you receive during convocation.
JC: We also expect certain changes like having review meets after fests. We have approached the Election Commission (EC) multiple times about this and even after every General Body Meeting (GBM) we bring it up. The Students’ Union Constitution is supposed to be updated every 3 years, so this is something we want to see changed.
It was launched in 2021, but it wasn’t done in 2024 or 2025. They said “We did an internal study, and it was not feasible.”
When we checked with someone who had been in EC, they said nothing had actually happened; this was just to put it out to the GB that changes have happened.
The constitution is for the students only. If they do not do it, we will do it. That is the process. And new members will be coming in now, right?
JC: We expect there to be a certain push from the Administration as well, so that these issues raised by students can be communicated to them.
Yes, these kinds of interactions and dialogues will help us. We are conscious of doing things in the right spirit. If the checks and balances that were created for a particular reason are not happening, then it defeats the purpose, and we will have to find another way. We will see how they think about it, and then we will have to keep playing this game. Ethics and integrity are something we expect, and I don’t see enough of that, so hopefully it gets better. But we will keep doing whatever we can.
JC: We appreciate it. You always take time for us, and we were really happy to hear from you and have you call us for another meeting. Thank you so much for that.
We appreciate what you guys do. This is also what we like to hear directly from the students. You guys are also patiently noting down everything, coming back. If we can improve in some sense, whatever is happening here, I think we have done our work.
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