Located in the heart of Bangalore, the faculty pool of MSRIT (M. S. Ramaiah Institute of Technology) has an average experience close to 23 years, which is more than the average age of an undergraduate engineering student in India. This single fact is enough to highlight the strength of MSRIT's faculty. However, the 52-year-old technical institution has many more highlights about its faculty.
Today, MSRIT stands tall as one of the India's finest names in Engineering Education by producing around 35,000 engineering professionals who occupy responsible positions across the globe. While standing on the top of the pyramid, all the credit for its achievements goes to its Founder Chairman, late Dr. M. S. Ramaiah and his extra ordinary vision. In 1962, when Dr. M.S. Ramaiah, who was a renowned visionary, philanthropist and a pioneer in creating several landmark infrastructure projects in India, decided to build a technical institution, the emphasize was on creating an excellent faculty pool. As a result, the institute gathered the best possible faculty members from all over the county, which turned out to be the foundation for MSRIT.
Never Leaving Scholars
While the country has more than 3500 engineering institution in its soil, it is easy for a professor to find better a place to work. However, this will never threaten the MSRIT management, as they are known for the least attrition rate in their faculty department. "Our attrition rate is very low and most faculties who joined here are retiring from here. That is their level of satisfaction," claims Dr. S. Y. Kulkarni, Principal, MSRIT. Currently, MSRIT has more than 350 faculty members in its campus and one third of them are PhD holders, which again adds glory to the institute. "We do not have any undergraduate teaching in our campus. The minimum requirement is M.Tech or an equivalent qualification," says Dr. Kulkarni. With adequate amount of experience and knowledge, many faculties from MSRIT have published a good number of textbooks in engineering. At present, there are more than 97 best selling textbooks in the market authored by MSRIT faculty members, which is not easy to achieve for any technical institute in the country.
Even though, the institute has a faculty pool blended perfectly with experience and qualifications, it is necessary for them to update their knowledge as per the current shifts in industry specific trends. Understanding the need of periodic enhancement of faculty knowledge, MSRIT conducts Faculty Development Programs (FDP) on a regular basis. "As we are running an autonomous campus, we have employed outcome based education system wherein there is a scope for continuous education. Thus, Faculty Development Program is a never ending process," says Dr. Kulkarni.
The autonomous status gives flexibility for the institute to design the curriculum as per the needs of today's dynamic industry. As a result, MSRIT make changes in its curriculum every year and has always tried to give the latest knowledge to its students as well as faculty members. That is the reason why students of Computer Science are learning about the latest hot topics like Business Analytics and Big Data as a part of their curriculum. "Our curriculum is not stagnant. We change our curriculum every year based on the industry requirements and we first train our faculties before we deliver the topic to the students," explains Dr. Kulkarni.
Apart from providing FDP programs, MSRIT sends its faculties to the industry for a specific period for training the faculties and make them aware about what is happening in the industry. "We have collaborated with more than 33 companies to give industry exposure to our faculty members," says Dr. Kulkarni. The institute has academic alliances with Intel, IBM, Schneider Electric, JSW Steel, Cognizant, EMC, Nokia and other multinationals. With these kinds of efforts, MSRIT has been maintaining a strong relationship with industry, which is reflecting in the student placement every year. "After the initial round of placements this year, the students who applied received at least one offer from any of the major recruiters in the country. At this moment, many students in our campus have received more than one offer," says Dr. Savita Konna, Head – Training and Placement, MSRIT. In 2014 placement season, 1200 eligible candidates of MSRIT grabbed an astonishing number of 1410 offers with package ranging from 5.5 lakhs to 16.5 lakhs per annum.
The job of an MSRIT faculty member does not limited in teaching and participating in the research activities. The institute has initiated a program to mentor students by the faculty members. As per the program, five students from each year will be assigned to faculty member and the students can approach their mentor regarding any issues that they have in campus. This has resulted in creating a much better bond between students and their teachers. While MSRIT is known for its achievements in the every possible avenue for a technical institution, the driving force behind is its faculty - the spine of MSRIT.
Dr. S.Y Kulkarni
He has rich experience in both the industry and academia. Dr. Kulkarni worked as a Modeling Engineer and Project Leader at the GEC Plessy Semi-conductors, Plymoth, UK, and as a General Manager at the SASKEN Communication Technologies Ltd., Bangalore. He has also been a visiting faculty for a several universities abroad and has visited the UK and the USA on several assignments. Dr. Kulkarni is a consultant to several semiconductor companies in Bangalore.
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