Faculty Selection -3
kjainiitr
Director from beginning was claiming that the faculty selections will be objective and transparent. He said he will be judging the candidates on 3 criteria:
1. Teaching
2. Academic including research
3. Professional including consultancy and international contacts/positions held.
If candidate has excellence in 1 out of 3 criteria he will be selected as Associate Professor and if candidate has excellence in 2 out of 3 criteria he will be selected as Professor.
However, in almost all non-selected cases the reasons were:
1. He was called in wrong selection committee (Paper & Pulp & Institute Instrumentation)
2. He was not confident in presenting himself.
3. If he was confident than he was arrogant.
Selection criteria seems to base on Director Choice and changes with change of Director. It is pathetic that 15-20 years and more work is judged on 10-15 minute response in the interview. Faculty interviews are not tennis game where person loses on the performance on a particular day. There are number of tournaments in a year. Therefore loosing few on the basis of performance on a particular day will not matter much to player. But in academics when all the Awards/recognition are based on lifelong performance why not selection is based on this. After all selections are not held every forth night where person can show his confidence.
Further, who will judge the candidate was confident when interview board is not representing all specialization and many a times vague questions are asked in interview. If the candidate object or didn't agree with the interview board member he is called arrogant.
I am attaching a file showing cases of irregularity (only few at present)
Kamal Jain
President FF
kjainiitr
The issue of non-objective, non-transparent and non-creditable was discussed in All India IIT Faculty Federation meeting held in January 26, 2012. The Federation has considered the issue and resolved to demand of objective, transparent and creditable in all IITs.
In the last Faculty selection the Director has shown his inability to make a selection process, as he wanted, since the Institute had already posted screening criteria on the web site along with the advertisement.
In my opinion, without going into debate, whether it was correct to post the screening criteria on web site or not, there is no doubt that the complete process of selection should be known to all before applying for the post.
Point wise I would like to highlight the shortcoming of the present process requiring immediate attention.
As per IIT statutes 13 (3) the constitution of Interview board is :
This constitution of the Selection Committee is, whether it is one professor or more. Now if we do the deliberate on the constitution of Selection Committee, there are 2 experts from the field of a candidate (each).
The Institute has been doing its interpretation on two experts per department (with number of specialization) instead of per candidate. Thereby many times the Selection Committee has no experts from the specialization of the candidate (It happened many times in department of Civil engineering; where there are 6 recognized specializations as per Senate record).
Some of the candidates have been called in wrong Selection Board (No expert from their field of specialization; example candidates from IIC, IPT)
There are no guidelines in Statutes or prepared by Senate about who could be considered an expert. Thereby,
a. Person in Assistant Professor Scale was called as expert in the Selection Committee for Professors Post in Earth Quake Department.
b. No expert, who himself qualified for any post (Professor or lower), in Geomatics Engineering of the Department of Civil Engineering, is called for selection of Faculty position since conversion to IIT. (One expert was Non PhD and others with Science Degree etc. in different years),
c. Some experts are called almost in all Selection Committee held in last 10-15 years as permanent member.
d. Retired person who have no accountability are called as Expert.
e. Some experts have their scholar/consultancy/project partner as a candidate (AHEC, jeopardizing others chance if his candidate is suffering directly or indirectly. There are many cases where candidate's supervisor/mentor put his foot down to select his candidate or else he will sabotage the interview. In many cases it has been give and take between experts).
The system has been working in free style and on presumptions.
Kamal Jain
President
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kjainiitr
Advt. No. Estt.(A)/1064/A-86(Fac.Adv./2013) Dated: April 25, 2013
There is no last date for applications and completed applications are welcome throughout the year and may be sent to Dean Faculty Affairs, IIT Roorkee, Roorkee-247 667 (Uttarakhand). However, only the applications received before notification of the date of interview for the concerned Department, on the Institute website, will be considered. List of shortlisted candidates and the date of interview will be notified on the website of the Institute www.iitr.ernet.in at least 20 days before the interview date. The applications received after the notification of date of interview for the concerned Department will be considered in the next selection process.
is summerised as below:
1. There is no last date for applications.
2. Applications are welcome throughout the year
3. Only the applications received before notification of the date of interview will be considered
4. Applications received after the notification of date of interview will be considered in the next selection process.
Last interview process was over by Oct 12. And within 6 month we have the next advertisement. However, many cases of Fast Track were considered in last 6 months. There were some cases which were screened out by DPC and ultimately by ISC but are taken up by interested party in Fast Track. This will be clearly called a back door entry. In fact an unwritten rule in all IITs is that any new aspirant for faculty position is rejected against any advertisement, will not be considered for at least 2 years. And definitely not through Fast Track which is not a normal selection process.
Now after the notification of the advertisement where applications are invited throughout the year there is no scope for Fast Track. Late applications will be considered in next interview. Departments may please stand up for the quality we are committed.
President FF