We Need Academic Leaders, Not Administrators
Narsee Monjee Institute Of Management Studies (NMIMS) was established in 1981 by Mumbai University with a goal of delivering quality management education. The institute has come a long way since then transforming into a deemed university offering various other programmes including diploma, graduate and postgraduate programmes in architecture, engineering, pharmacy, science and commerce. 
Its flagship programme however remains MBA (core), which comes under NMIMS School of Business Management. The institute is also coming up with another campus in Bangalore largely focusing on executive management education. NMIMS has recently acquired land in Chandigarh and soon will establish a campus in north India as well.
Many new programmes and ideas have starting taking shape since the current Vice Chancellor, Rajan Saxena took over. With around 35 years of experience in teaching, research, consulting and institution building, Saxena is a renowned professor of marketing and has held the post of director for Indian Institute of Management, Indore and SP Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai earlier. Apart from the ongoing campus expansion plans, Saxena is keen on signing new tie-ups with universities abroad and is already in talks with a few. Saxena shared his plans for the institute and more with BW Online's Chetna Mehra. Excerpts:
What sets NMIMS apart from other B-schools?
Over a period of time we have built up a certain knowledge base in terms of the pedagogy and the learning environment that one needs to create within a business school. Now when I say learning environment, I look at it essentially as a component of couple of parameters. One is the pedagogy. As a B-school we have consciously taken the decision to move the entire classroom instructions to experiential pedagogy. And for this purpose we realised that not all our faculty members were exposed to this kind of learning. So, we sent our faculty to the Harvard Business School to get them trained in participant-centred learning. We have an understanding with the Harvard Business School for this kind of training programme. We discovered that our students found the experiential learning better than the traditional lecture pedagogy.
The second parameter is the kind of environment that we create from which students get to learn from peer group learning. We are not a residential school so the challenge becomes all the more crucial. So we try to ensure that a) There is a lot of group work: so a flexible time is built up for group work. b) There are various projects in which they get involved and c) Since working late nights on papers and cases is an important aspect, we keep our entire infrastructure such as library open till late hours. The next important element is that the students really need to learn not just in the classroom but from outside from the entire resources. I believe we have miles to go before we say we are really there.
And what are you doing to achieving this goal?
We realised that we were handicapped in terms of our infrastructure. Our classrooms were not designed for a participant centred learning. So, we are getting our old centre demolished now and will be coming up with a new campus. All our classrooms are going to be designed for 360-degree learning. That’s the first step. We are also trying to bring in international faculty so the learning could be from the international experiences. We are also looking at recruiting the international faculty on permanent basis. The next step is to include overseas students in our MBA programmes.
The first thing we have done is to move our NMAT online which is being conducted across 12 countries. This makes us the only B-School in the country conducting its entrance test internationally.
Why did you choose to conduct the NMAT abroad? Is it another step to make your B-School globalised?
I believe, tomorrow is not just in taking our business school out of the country as much as trying to bring the world to my business school. So, this is a very distinct type of change in terms of internationalisation. Some of the business schools are trying to set their campus abroad, which is one strategy. The other strategy is to ‘import’ the students. Our strategy is to import the students and bring in a mix of different cultures. Another major thing is that we are trying to bring in a number of online courses and hope to get international expertise in designing and managing these courses. We are also looking at the possibility of extending our e-library.
What is the role of faculty in the process of internationalisation of your B-School?
Most business schools in the country including IIMs are nothing but teaching institutions. Whatever is the research topic, it is something on which already has been written about. The test at NM is how many of our faculty members’ works get quoted or referenced by subsequent researchers in any of their articles and particularly any of their research projects. You would be surprised that there are not many.
Source: http://www.businessworld.in
Date: 2nd Jan., 2010
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