IUCEE organizes second national-level Faculty Leadership Institute (FLI)

MYSORE, INDIA: The Indo-US Collaboration for Engineering Education (IUCEE) organized the national-level faculty training program termed as Faculty Leadership Institute, in Mysore, for the second consecutive year, with over 600 selected Indian engineering faculty participating in more than 23 workshops.

The main objective of Faculty Leadership institute (FLI) is to improve the quality and global relevance of Engineering Education in India and in the United States. The training was provided by distinguished U.S. faculty from June 22, 2009 till July 10, 2009 at Global Education Center, Infosys Technologies, Mysore.

IUCEE has constituted the Faculty Leadership Institute (FLI) to impart training for engineering faculty through the ‘Facilitate the trainer’ approach. The target is to reach over 60,000 engineering faculty by the year 2013, thus making an impact on the vast student population.

Qualified professors from US, including Dr. Richard M. Felder, Hoechst Celanese Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University and Rebecca Brent, President of Education Designs, Inc., a consulting firm in Cary, North Carolina, will share knowledge through course content and delivery to selected Indian faculty.

The workshops include subjects like computer architecture and advanced graphical system design with National Instruments' Labview. Selected faculty members are mentored and certified by IUCEE to develop Training Kits and offer training through IUCEE regional centers of excellence for tier 2 and 3 colleges, in more than 10 states in India.

Several prestigious institutes in India, like the National Institutes of Technology (NIT), Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and the US including Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Massachusetts Lowell, Virginia Tech University and Purdue University are associated with this program.

Ashank Desai, President of Pan IIT and Chairman of Mastek, says: “The Faculty Leadership Institute will help in creating a better education system and India as a nation will be recognised for its intellectual capability and competitiveness. It will enable students to be trained and be more industry-ready. This will empower the youth to face the challenges posed by the ever-changing global economy.”

The IUCEE was born out of the Pan IIT 2006 Conference held in Mumbai. One of the key action items identified for IITs and IITians post the conference was to contribute to nation building by assisting in the improvement of the quality of engineering education particularly the under graduate level throughout India.

Pan IIT, an organization of the alumni and faculty of Indian Institutes of Technology, has provided a strong foundation for building this Collaboration. The first Indo-US Faculty Leadership Institute was conducted in summer 2008, wherein 585 engineering faculty participated in 23 workshops.

Participants trained at these workshops have then conducted more than 60 regional workshops for the engineering faculty at IUCEE Regional Centers. This has resulted in an additional 2000 faculty being trained in the teaching methods, who in turn have impacted the learning of over 20,000 students so far.

Vijay Thadani, CEO, NIIT and Dr. Hans Hoyer, Director, Global Strategies for American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) and Secretary General of International Federation of Engineering Societies (IFEES) have extended their support to the workshops. Executive Directors, Indo US Collaboration for Engineering Education -Prof. Krishna Vedula, Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of Massachusetts Lowell along with Dr M.P. Ravindra, Advisor, & Former Senior Vice President of Education and Research, Infosys, spearhead this initiative.