Page 7 - November 2020 Ag Newsletter.cdr

Moving a step closer to excellence: Decision and initiatives of Dean Ofce

T he College of Agriculture, the rst college of the periphery. Similarly, a separate room for Agriculture Society
would promote the activities of student mentoring in
University, needed to get towards excellence and engage
college.A campaign has been taken up to document the
into several developmental endeavours. However, the
present situation of pandemic created a lot of hurdles in the way. prole of illustrious alumni by creating small video lms on
In the wake of the pandemic, a series of pragmatic decisions were their life. A team of college students is working on
taken to overcome the challenges and facilitate the best possible distinguished projects with the alumni and collecting
ambience for the teaching-learning process, and the students. information to generate scripts for the intended lms.
Some of these spectacular and exemplary decisions and l Focused efforts are being made to align with the corporate
initiatives are as follows: houses for the collaborations, student projects, fellowship,
l It was observed that the students might not come back to the and other purposes. Three such collaborative meetings were
campus this semester, and online teaching is the only held under the chairmanship of the Dean and in the presence
imperative left in hand. In the last semester, faculty members of other faculty members with the Crystal Crop Protection
opted for various platforms with which classes were Pvt. Ltd., Shri Ram Group, and Bajaj Group. The College Core
somehow conducted. To improve this system, the Dean Ofce Action Group, under the chairmanship of Dr. J.P. Jaiswal, has
took initiatives to equip all the classrooms with interactive been instrumental in generating these tie-ups.
panels, internet facility, etc. to create interactive and regular l Special discussion meeting was held between the Dean and
classes for the UG, PG, and PhD students. This proposition Dr. Achintya N. Bezbaruah, Associate Professor, Civil and
emerged to be very fruitful in conducting the classes. Environmental Engineering, and Director, NAE Grand
l Looking into the changing situation and the new context of Challenges Scholars Program at North Dakota State
using interactive whiteboards etc, the ofce of the Dean University, USA. The discussion was focused on new
decided to hold a series of training for the faculty members, to developments in agricultural research, especially in the areas
equip them with the proper equipment and acquaint them of molecular level plant pathogen work, crop modelling,
with new equipment and technology. This helped in ensuring articial intelligence in agriculture, nano agriculture, vertical
a smooth transition towards online teaching through agriculture, plant genomics, etc.
interactive boards.
l It was decided to enhance the showcasing of the college in
front of the world. Thus, a college newsletter, a college
YouTube channel, dedicated alumni portal, have been put in
place while a college placement portal is underway. The
newsletter is being published monthly with the help of college
students and is being circulated all across gaining lots of
accolades from alumni and other stakeholders.

l A multi-institutional interaction was organized wherein the
Dean and members of the College Core Action Group
participated and the international academia contemporaries
included Dr. Achintya N. Bezbaruah, Associate Professor,
Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Director, NAE
Grand Challenges Scholars Program at North Dakota State
University, USA; Dr. Robert Brueggeman, Associate
Professor, Crop and Soil Sciences and Robert A. Nilan
Endowed Chair in Barley Research and Education at
l A dedicated team of faculty members was formed headed by Washington State University, USA; and Dr. Chrysas
Dr. V.C. Dhyani and comprising Dr. Ruchi Gangwar, Dr. Vogiatizis, Teaching Assistant Professor, Industrial and
Manju, Dr. Shweta Arora, Dr. Shweta Uniyal for facilitating Enterprise Systems Engineering at University of Illinois,
other faculty members in conducting online classes. They help Urbana-Champaign, USA.
the faculty members during the classes in slide sharing, use of
touch screens, and other advanced equipment.
l It was decided to furnish and equip two rooms in the college, Contributed by:
rd
one for college placement and counselling, and the other for Samiksha Yadav, B.Sc Agriculture, III Year
Agriculture Society's activities. Measures were taken to
promote different companies and rms for student
recruitment, so that the students who wish to go for a job after Contributed by:
nd
UG, PG, or Ph.D., could get placements from the college Saurabh Chandra Tamta, B.Sc Agriculture, II Year
College of Agriculture, Pantnagar | www.gbpuat.ac.in 7