e-news Oct 07 - NIST

from the director’s deskThe euphoria of Deepawali – the Festival of Lights, was magnified this yearwith the Samanta Chandrashekhar Young Scientist Award to NIST faculty,Dr. Motahar Reza, Assistant Professor, Mathematics, on November 7, 2007.This is the third time in the past few years that NIST faculty have achieved thisfeat of winning the Samanta Chandrashekhar Young Scientist Awards – the othertwo being Dr. Chandal Nahak and Dr. Saroj Meher. From all the students, staff,faculty and well wishers of NIST – a standing ovation to Dr. Motahar Reza for hisstupendous performance for being the best young scientist in the state of Orissa inthe Physical Sciences under the age of 35. We wish Dr. Reza all the best in the years to come as heachieves new milestones.While going through the IIT Kanpur Alumni Magazine “Voices”, I came across a sentiment whichtouched my heart and hence I take the liberty of reproducing it here.CompensationsOne question that I continually ask myself is why am I here, at IIT Kanpur, instead of working atsome research institute or in the industry. Life on campus is comfortable, but financially and in termsof opportunities in the non-professional sphere, this job is severely limited.What IIT Kanpur does offer me is interaction with students who want to learn, who are curious andsupposedly bright. There is a fresh set of young minds coming in every year. I enjoy the challenges ofintroducing them to the most recent advances in technology, and consequently not getting boredmyself. I see this as an important part of my compensation package. Typically, at least two fullworking days out of five go in preparing, engaging and following up on a class.If students don’t come to class, or don’t show interest, my compensation package gets compromised.This trend of students not showing up for class or being disinterested in academics is increasing dayby day and happening across the institute. This means that increasingly I am being deprived of animportant part of my compensation for being a faculty member at IIT Kanpur.Prof T.V. PrabhakarDept of CS, IIT/KOne can simply replace IIT Kanpur with NIST Berhampur and the sentiment of our faculty membersand myself remains the same. The message for the students is loud and clear: their seriousness inacademic pursuits, their respect and admiration for faculty members, alongwith an understandingthat being a faculty in today’s environment is a sacrifice of sorts, are the most essential componentsfor retaining the top brains within the academic community.November 15, 2007Sangram MudaliNational Institute of Science & Technology, Berhampur, 761008 1 of 18