Senate meeting and rule of allotment of supervisors

[Abhimanyu Kar]

Dear all,

The 301st meeting of the institute senate will be held tomorrow, 7th March. Any student desirous to put forward their opinion about any issue (ref agenda mailed earlier) may meet any of the four student representatives personally.

In the said agenda there is a case of a student asking for a change in supervisor under grave circumstances. There are other such cases I have heard where some student has been forcibly allotted a guide at the start of PhD. Evan after that his request to change his guide is under consideration.

Today I had a talk with the asst registrar regarding such issues and I came to know that there is no uniform rule of guide allotment in the institute. It is done by each department independently according to their policy and students officially may have no say in it. I think this is not a student-friendly rule. A supervisor is one of the major issues of a student's decision to pursue higher studies.

Guidance of a PhD work is counted during promotion of the faculty since it is considered an indication of merit. However to beat the system the departments often have policies to allot students to professors to whom nobody wants to go. i this was not in place the faculty could also have been more competitive.

In this situation I want to come up with a proposal for a transparent set of rules for supervisor allotment where students should also have some say. I would like to have your opinion in this regard.

--
Abhimanyu Kar

Research Scholars' Representative
Institute Senate
IIT Kharagpur