Page 20 - EW April 2021

Education News

WEST BENGAL
istry complaining that under Seth’s
Unwanted new broom leadership, there was “decline in
academic and research environment”
and “systematic undermining” of
T SEEMS TO BE THE SEASON FOR top- the academic council, the institute’s
level resignations from blue-chip principal curriculum framing and
Ihigher ed institutions. Soon after governance body.
the highly respected public intellec- Evidently, the board and faculty
tual Dr. Pratap Bhanu Mehta and Dr. have no regrets about Seth’s resigna-
Arvind Subramaniam, former chief tion a year before her term which
economic advisor of the BJP/NDA was scheduled to end in January
government, put in their papers at 2022. On March 24, the board of
the ambitious, privately-promoted IIM-Calcutta named Subir Bhat-
Ashoka University in Delhi NCR on tacharya, the senior-most faculty
March 15, Dr. Anju Seth, the first member, as the director in-charge
woman director of the vintage top- and promptly constituted a search
ranked Indian Institute of Manage- committee to recruit a new director.
ment, Calcutta (IIM-C, estb.1961), Seth: sweeping reforms agenda “One hopes that this time round,
sent her resignation letter to the the board won’t recruit an academic
prime minister’s office and IIM-C’s ers,” wrote Seth in her resignation from a foreign university, no matter
board of governors. The board is letter accessed by the Economic how eminent. Most of these imports
chaired by Shrikrishna Kulkarni, Times. Although Seth’s resignation tend to be tenured professors in
the great grandson of Mahatma letter went viral on social media, American universities where there
Gandhi and former managing direc- Kulkarni, members of the board of is no retirement age. They take
tor of Panasonic India and founder- governors, and faculty have main- leave of absence to make an impact
president of Fanuc India. tained a studied silence on the issue. in India in a hurry. They have little
In her resignation letter dated Nevertheless, according to understanding of local conditions
March 21, Seth accused Kulkarni off-the-record conversations with and culture of institutions that hire
and the board of “maligning and faculty and alumni it’s clear that them and like bulls in a China shop,
denigrating her publicly.” A highly Seth swiftly transformed into a new recklessly disrupt well-established
qualified alumna of Delhi University, broom in a tearing hurry to sweep institutions,” says a retired senior
IIM-C itself and awarded a Ph D in this essentially faculty-run institute board member of IIM-C who has
business strategy by the Stephen M. clean. She discerned “open breach of been monitoring the “big dust up” in
Ross School of Business, Michigan government guidelines in matters of IIM-C with “wry amusement”.
University, USA, Seth was recruited procurement and recruitment of per- That’s useful advice IIM-C’s
from Virginia Tech (USA) where she sonnel” and “legacy issues related to newly-constituted search committee
is a tenured professor of business lack of transparency or accountabil- would do well to bear in mind.
management, in Novermber 2018 for ity, misuse of public funds, a weak Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)
a four-year term. financial situation,” and charged
“I am deeply anguished at not Kulkarni and the board with “undue MADHYA PRADESH
being able to fulfil this mandate and interference” which impeded her
help turn around IIM-C to a world- reform initiatives. Unprecedented
class institution with a distinctive But Seth’s aggressive reforms
Indian heritage. This situation has agenda not only cheesed off the verdict
arisen because of a breakdown in board of governors but also the
confidence escalating over the past faculty of this vintage B-school which ESPITE ‘RAGGING’ — AN ARCHAIC
four months between me as direc- is routinely ranked with IIM-Ahmed- initiation ritual during which
tor and CEO and you (Kulkarni) as abad and IIM-Bangalore as the best Dnew entrants into schools and
chairman of the board. To the best B-school in India. colleges are teased and bullied by se-
of my ability, I have been conducting Quite clearly neither this widely niors having been banned by the Cen-
my responsibilities as director and respected B-school’s board nor its tral and state governments and invit-
CEO in the best long-run interests of faculty believe that IIM-C needs ing the wrath of the Supreme Court
the institute with a focus on urgent urgent and radical “urgent reforms”. — acts of ragging are punishable by
reforms, forward-looking decisions Last December 60 of IIM-C’s faculty fines of up to Rs.50,000, jail terms
and in the interest of all stakehold- wrote to the Union education min- ranging from six months to ten years

22 EDUCATIONWORLD APRIL 2021