Visitors Archives - And then...

My munia neighbours

A nesting pair of scaly-breasted munias intend to set up residence on my balcony. Not quiet birds these, they announced their intention with much gusto and chirping, and over the last few days, there has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, grass being gathered and dropped, discussions on architecture and placements, doubtless. The picture I took of them was not good enough to show, so here is one from the relevant Wikipedia entry-

There are many on the campus who take wonderful photographs- of the flora and fauna, of the landscape built and unbuilt, and it would be good to display these talents more publicly. The 2015 UoH calendar will celebrate our wildlife, and hopefully inspire us once again to preserve and conserve it…

Over a year ago, before I moved onto campus, I had gone to see the (still uncompleted) house. On a sill upstairs, I found the perfect welcome- a nest with two perfectly placed eggs. That of a pied wagtail, as I later discovered- a proud home within a home, but so apposite.

I’m not one to believe in signs and the like, but it felt reassuring then. In the next few weeks we watched the eggs hatch, the nestlings grow, and then one day, it was time for them to fly away. The transformation, even when it happened before our eyes, was startling.

And, of course, a very immediate metaphor. As I see the campus preparing itself for receiving students old and new, the parallels are more than obvious, from the shared hostel rooms to the visible testing of wings and the eventual flight away from the nest and to the flocking together… As people return to campus, its good to receive messages from students, like “Yeah it feels good… I mean it feels like home again. Look at this: LH1, the oldest hostel… hot climate … nothing like Kerala… But it feels like home.”

And to see these emotions (posted on FB) when they leave. “There are certain things in this world which you think will not affect you, and you will always just walk by unaffected…but everything and everyone does affect you, they linger on in your memory: may haunt you, may make you reminisce, may just make you realize that you are what you are because of it, even though all this time you may not have completely comprehended this…. I realize it now, as I get ready to actually leave you now University of Hyderabad: Thank you for hosting me for the past five years…you have helped me grow, helped me find my path, and given me some wonderful friends. Although you do seem to be like an “acquired taste” but I am glad to have acquired it. — Mixed feelings at University of Hyderabad.“

But metaphors apart, our campus is very much a haven as the two representative comments above show, and for birds as well. Of course there are significant differences between the way that we and our fine feathered friends view the refuge, and the image of the nest above says much of it. The birds don’t dirty their nests- something that we, regrettably, don’t seem to care about. I’m talking about the litter on campus, of course. So much of it is so unnecessary, and something that can be avoided with a little thought and care. Its easy to say that there are not enough garbage cans or waste bins. The arguments get tired by repetition, and in any case its more fun to look at the birds, their nests and the trees.

So here’s a simple “Welcome Back!” to returning students, a “Welcome!” to the new ones, to invite us all to enjoy this campus and to keep it as clean and au naturel as possible.

CKN: The Campus Knowledge Network

Yesterday’s Distinguished Lecture by Ashok Venkitaraman was exciting in more ways than one. First thing- it was a superb lecture. Great material, excellent presentation, very thought provoking and truly inspiring. And the best part was that you can see it again, here. And again. And tell your friends they can see it via the National Knowledge Network (NKN) all over the campus, and all across the nation.

The NKN is a state-of-the-art multi-gigabit pan-India network for providing a unified high speed network backbone for all knowledge related institutions in the country. The purpose of such a knowledge network goes to the very core of the country’s quest for building quality institutions with requisite research facilities and creating a pool of highly trained professionals. The NKN will enable scientists, researchers and students from different backgrounds and diverse geographies to work closely for advancing human development in critical and emerging areas.

This is just the beginning, I hope. We should have all our Distinguished Lectures made available to all Universities on the NKN, and as you can see from the map on the right, that network is pretty extensive. In some ways this would be better than just putting them on UoHTube, but since it is in addition to that, it only widens our range.

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Our Campus Knowledge Network needs strengthening, though. Too often our ivory tower is actually more like a set of ivory minarets, each housing a School, Department or Centre, isolated even from each other. To that end, starting this Valentine’s Day, the University begins its Inaugural Lecture Series, an ongoing set of colloquia that will be delivered by newly appointed Professors. These lectures are to be very general and accessible to colleagues from all disciplines, and are open to students and faculty from all across the University. The first of these will be given by Professor Siba Udgata of the School of Computer and Information Sciences: February 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm in the Raman Auditorium.

Siba works on Wireless Sensor Networks, crucial to many aspects of the ubiquitous computing environment that we inhabit. A great opportunity for us all to learn about the work that he and his group are doing in the area of green computing among other things.

We do need to cross the many divides that separate the two or more cultures that inhabit our academic landscape, and it requires not just the effort of the lecturer to reach out to a diverse audience, but also the effort of the audience to listen and learn. I hope that our community on the campus can learn to engage with ourselves and the variety of scholarly work that is going on here at home, namely our very own campus knowledge network!

Radical Visitor

Karoline Pershell is Assistant Professor of Mathematics, University of Tennessee at Martin. She is spending a semester with us at the University as a Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar. After coming across her blog, Radical India (its a math joke, see the image on the right) I thought I would request her to do a guest post on this blog, to tell us about her experience at the UoH. She was kind enough to respond positively (Thanks, Karoline!), and here is her post, titled

Hearty Thanks.

When I applied for the Fulbright-Nehru Teaching Scholar position in the summer of 2011, I had never considered where in India I would be placed. With so many universities and IIT’s in the country, it was serendipitous that my online searches from the other side of the globe showed me the Mathematics Training and Talent Search Programme, with the founding organizer at the University of Hyderabad. A few email exchanges later, and I told the US consulate that I would like to go to U of H. I arrived on December 28, began classes on January 2, and it has been an exciting semester!

Based on student comments, I think I have demanded a lot from them on a daily and weekly basis, but my students in the Integrated Masters of Science program have risen to the challenge! I am impressed by their questions, by their participation, by their enthusiasm for the material in class, and excitement for their studies outside of class.

My students have made my time here extremely rewarding. Through them I have learned about Indian culture, Hinduism, holidays, festivals, customs and even visited some of their homes. I have learned about their career ambitions and attempted to help in whatever way I can, by passing along opportunities or just encouraging their passions.

I have taken advantage of so many (too many??) things UoH offers, like plays and festivals, lectures and conferences, and sports! (Yeah…I didn’t know what a wicket was when I came here. Silly Americans.) I have traveled outside of Hyderabad as well, in an attempt to get to know a little more about India (Jaipur, Delhi, Agra and Kochi), while spreading the love of math. (See photos of doing math on an elephant… )

It was strange to find myself amongst a group of all Americans at a recent conference in Kochi for the Fulbright-Nehru scholars, researchers and students who are in South and Central Asia. I greatly enjoyed hearing about the work that Fulbrighters across the subcontinent are pursuing and excited that I am lumped together with such amazing people.

Besides sharing research, I believe many Fulbrighters used this time with other Americans to commiserate, to look at someone from your own culture and have the person validate that you have had a rough go during the year, as travel always requires compromises.

However, I can’t complain.

Everything has run so smoothly for me since before I arrived that I assumed other Fulbrighters were having similar experiences. I had taken for granted the incredible work that Professor Kumaresan (Dean of the School of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Hyderabad) and Prof KPN Murthy (Director of the Center for Integrated Studies) have done.

From my health to my living arrangements, from my transportation to my course load, Prof Kumaresan has brought me to Hyderabad as his guest and given me the autonomy to run my course as I deem appropriate. Profs Kumaresan and Murthy are passionate about the students learning to problem solve for themselves (as opposed to regurgitate on exams). I think I convinced the mathematics chair that I feel the same way, and as such he had enough faith in me to: teach a required course for the majors; adjust the grading scale to place emphasis on the homework and outlines (things which are necessary to learning the material, but often are not given any allotment in the grading scheme); and to require daily writing from the students.

Like Kumaresan, I believe we need to teach the students to think, and that may mean stepping back and showing them how to teach themselves. As my semester is winding down, I realize how far from the norm my class is, and appreciate the opportunity that the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Integrated Studies is giving me to share my passion with the students, and expose the students to possibly a different teaching style.

Finally, I would like to highly recommend the University of Hyderabad as a location for future Fulbright placement. The opportunities at the university for a professor to teach or do research are probably similar to other universities throughout India, but the level of assistance, respect and freedom in the classroom that is given to professors far exceeds that of anything I have heard from other Fulbrighters.

Being dropped alone in a foreign country can be daunting (see sign of poisonous snakes on campus), but the reception I have received in Hyderabad has made me feel at home.

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Thank you for this opportunity and I hope that I have given back to UoH at least a fraction of all that UoH has given me.

Cheers,

Karoline

PS: Please notice that I am a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar: the exchange goes both ways! Please consider applying for a Fulbright-Nehru position for Indian citizens at http://www.usief.org.in