Fostering Societal Progress & Creating Impact: The Mantra for B-School
Ever since the terms ‘Covid’, ‘Lockdown’, ‘Pandemic’ etc. entered our usual lexicon, the flow of energy in society and trade was only in powersaving mode for some time. People needed new solutions to overcome the challenges posed under this era of the new normal.
Never in the recent history had such a quick and bold response to a crisis had come from all sectors of our country. The governments, think-tanks and philanthropic groups all worked with much vigor and commitment and words like ‘Innovation’, ‘Charity’, ‘Progress’ found their way back into our daily lives.
At such a time, the national competition for awards conducted by Association of Management Schools (AIMS) as a part of their 32 Annual Convention with the theme “Rediscovering Management Education for the Pandemic World: The Roadmap Ahead” proved to be an incredible platform to present the best of innovations and leadership during these turbulent times. The awards were categorized into three key areas which included institution, faculty and student awards.
PSG Institute of Management’s contribution to management education was handsomely recognized at the conference and they were bestowed with one institutional and two faculty awards.
The National Management Week award, activities that directly benefit the public and the community were taken up by many member b-schools across India for 7 continuous days (from Jan 1-7, 2021), and the best ones were honored at the AIMS Convention held between August 26 and 28 this year. PSG IM took up 41 projects that energized and educated various stakeholder groups in Tamil Nadu and was bestowed with an institutional award.
Dr.V.Srividya Professor of Finance received the AIMS – ICFAI Best Teacher Award for 2021 and Dr. Deepa R. Associate Professor won the AIMS-WeSchool Innovation Award for her excellence in Innovative teaching methodology’.
Management Beyond Academics – Prof.T.G.Vijaya, Director I/c, PSG IM
“As much as we are proud of all these awards I must say that as an institution we do not work towards these awards. These awards are consequences of the work that my faculty and the institution do for the entire year.”
“Research, Innovation and Teaching are a part of the DNA of the organization and the faculty who work here. It is important for me to also emphasize that it has become a mandate for management institutions to focus on the impacts they bring in society.”
“At PSG IM, we engage in lots of activities which are related to society. We even have a course in our curriculum which talks about Managers and Society, where we teach our young Managers to be responsible towards society. We focus a lot on UN Sustainable Development Group goals. Our curriculum is around these goals, and the mantra for us at PSG IM is Management Beyond Academics”
“Students have to learn and get credits/scores; even more important is creating young individuals who are going to be managers with a humane side to themselves, so that they can actually create an impact on society and probably be more relevant to the environment they are in.”
Incredible Impact, Phenomenal Learning
– Prof. Krishnaveni, PSG IM’s Coordinator, AIMS National Management Week Programs
Bringing smiles in the faces of the less fortunate during this catastrophe is a matter of possibility for all of the privileged. Feeling that the right time is now or never, three professors of PSG IM Prof. Arul Rajan, Prof. Umesh Chandrasekhar and Prof. Krishnaveni Damodaran conceptualized the activities that have to be done for the institution’s participation at NMW. The events were of various angles, but they all had in them the vision to instill a change.
“We had come up with a set of 41 events, and all of them were executed in a span of 1 week. Every student put in lot of effort. They came up with a wide number of projects, you should see the sheer variety of projects they have brought up!”, recollects Prof. Krishnaveni.
The students uprooted Seemai Karuvelam trees on the banks of River Cauvery, planted saplings there, audited the wetlands in Coimbatore and identified their current status, introduced E-commerce to local traders whose sales were taking a hit due to covid, educated budding illustrators, photographers and language trainers on how to promote oneself in Social media sites, educated voters esp. the first time voters on how to apply for voter card, provided cots and bedsheets to people affected with Leprosy, provided food to the elders at old age homes, raised funds for the LGBT Community, shared about Rain Water Harvesting methods to public, created an audiobook of 9th Std. Social Studies text and presented it to the Tamil Nadu Association for Blind Students…
“If you look at the career guidance program, a counsellor spoke to government school children studying 9-12 standards in different groups and timings. He told them about the opportunities that go beyond the usual medicine, engineering, law etc. This one program touched 270 school kids”, Prof. Krishnaveni adds.
These projects were undertaken by the 210 first year students of PSG IM’s MBA Anna Univ and MBA Waste Management and Social Entrepreneurship. The professor says the students were just 1-2 months into Management education at the college but exhibited extreme enthusiasm and poured lot of efforts.
They learned in the real world about managing a project, time, raising funds, coordinating with team, talking to people and getting the works done, engaging with the community and much more. The things classrooms offer as theory, the students had learned them while executing these projects. The societal impact of these projects and the learning outcomes of the students have been immense and incredible, according to her.
Education with Emotional & Social Skills is vital
– Prof.V.Srividya, AIMS – ICFAI Best Teacher Award winner
The first thing that Prof. Srividya said when asked what made her select Teaching as a profession was that this field has immense potential to inspire and transform people. As these ideals aligned with her aspirations, she picked Teaching 21 years ago.
“I wanted to do something which won’t be mundane or routine. I was looking for something which will make a difference, and that is how I chose to be in Teaching”, she says.
“I first wanted to be a qualified teacher. So I did a direct Ph.D. after completing my Masters in Commerce. Only after my Ph.D. I started to teach, which I think was a good thing I did. Once I got my Ph.D., getting into a college to teach was a natural progression”.
Prof .Srividya has been with PSG IM since 2002. She currently teaches Financial Management, Financial Services and Investment courses.
While many attributes of the shortlisted candidates for the ‘AIMS – ICFAI Best Teacher Award 2021’, were weighed at the convention, one aspect that Prof. Srividya herself considers the deciding factor in winning this prestigious award was her International Academic Exposure facilitated by PSG IM.
“In 2006, PSG IM went a long way into internationalizing all its programs; that way I had great opportunity to be a part of it. That gave me a lot of exposure and the chance to collaborate with number of best in class faculty and researchers, both in India as well as in other countries, and also to build networks. I was able to bring back all those experience to my class”, she says.
She expressed that students of today are evolving constantly to the times ahead of them, and it has become the teachers’ duty to provide more than just academic knowledge to them. “I think application –based learning, and teaching the matters that are relevant to the industry are important, as far as teaching is concerned; at the same time, I think imparting emotional and social skills will also be very important”.
Don’t just acquire knowledge, apply it
– Prof. Deepa, AIMS-WeSchool Innovation Award Winner
Prof. Deepa developed a technique that has greatly assisted her in analyzing how well students have acquired knowledge by learning and how effective have they applied the acquired knowledge in real life scenarios. Based on the findings of her pioneering research, she was bestowed with the Gold Medal – AIMS WeSchool Innovation Award.
“When you teach in class, it should result in acquisition of knowledge and change in attitude or behavior. The subject that I teach is ‘Emotional Intelligence for Managers’ wherein we teach the students how to manage their emotions and how to understand others.”
Prof. Deepa says that learning takes place in three ways – Cognitive (understanding a concept), Affective (transformation of understanding into attitude) and Psychomotor (Physical application of the knowledge and attitude).
To find whether a student has understood the concept, a written test could be made. But it becomes a challenge to know whether the concept has taken hold in the student’s behavior and has it been applied in real-life scenario.
To address this challenge, Prof. Deepa pioneered a technique called ‘Reflective Journaling to ensure Knowledge Creation and Application in the Affective Domain’. More than 150 students of her classes have been a part of this experiment. The students took note of the important aspects that Prof. Deepa taught them in ‘Emotional Intelligence for Managers’ class, and applied them in their daily life, and recorded that experience. This was made as an assessment component, and using the journal experience, she mapped all the outcomes.
“This Outcome Based Education is an important factor wherein we try to map whether the student has acquired all the outcomes of teaching. In my innovation, it was there and that was the winning factor”
Prof. Deepa has also secured the Gold Medal for Innovation in Teaching from AIMS in August 2015, for using theatre play to teach intercultural communication, apart from that she is a Gold Medalist from PSG Tech as well.
She shared that PSG IM always gives priority to academic freedom. The institution always supports innovative techniques and it will let you use your freedom creatively in the classroom. The institute encourages innovations and outcomes. This academic freedom is the topmost motivator here at PSG IM.