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Promotions
Consistency in evaluations by people is always elusive. However, given the way our evaluative processes are organized, it is even harder. As we all know, a candidate is first “evaluated” at the department level by DFAC, whose recommendations are given to IFAC, which makes its own recommendations. The final decision is taken by the selection committee which consists of four external members, including the visitor’s nominee. The constitution of DFAC requires that every year about half of DFAC retires, so in two years, there may be a totally new DFAC. IFAC also changes almost completely (except the Director) every three years. And the selection committee experts are also new every year, except the visitor’s nominee who is the same for three years. Furthermore, no record of DFAC, IFAC, or selection committee deliberations is kept. And to add to this, there is no clearly written policy or summary of past cases which may be used as a guideline by any group in the evaluation chain
This process implies that after some time, earlier cases of people promoted, or not promoted, are known only informally through the grapevine. Even the set of people who have to opine on the cases know about the previous cases through this grapevine. And, as can be expected, more often than not, the information dissemination through the informal channels is lossy and inaccurate, leading to a lack of even a foundation for taking consistent decisions.
In such a situation, how are individuals in the evaluative chain expected to form their views on candidates? Assuming that no extraneous factors are taken into account, an evaluator will generally form a view based on what he/she perceives as the value the candidate brings to the department or the institute. The best test of determining this value is to pose the question “if the person leaves, what will be the loss”, or “if we can keep only one person, who should we keep”. In the absence of any clear guidelines and past summaries, different evaluators will get different answers to these questions depending on their own value system. Some people argue for (or against) a case based on publication record, some argue based on the service the person has given to the institute, some use the teaching record, some show contributions like development of lab, center, or some other administrative contribution, etc. In other words, one source of diverging views is that the “value” to a department or institute is perceived differently by different people depending on their own value system, as there is no clearly articulated value system of the Institute.
But do we have an academic value system that perhaps has not been articulated? A research university in the US, for example, takes the stand that a person brings value to the department or university only by his R&D contributions. They take this view as finding faculty members is not hard, hence “covering” courses is not hard and their society and economy is highly research and technology driven. This one-dimensional view was clearly not well suited in our context in the past as the main objective of the institute in formative years was to develop a leading education program. Hence teaching a core course was very valuable; so was setting a new lab with new equipment and technology, as well as setting up administrative systems and procedures. In other words, in the past, we did need a value system that recognized contribution in various dimensions. And from various accounts, this was indeed the case.
The values, however, evolve, as they should. Though activities like setting a lab, starting new courses, administering are still needed, it is not clear if they should be viewed as highly valuable today. With IPR and new technologies becoming key success factors for economies, there is clearly a need to inculcate a value system that focuses sharply and unambiguously on R&D output. And unless a changed value system that reflects the needs of a rapidly modernizing and growing India are clearly articulated and tirelessly followed, confusion regarding what constitutes value will prevail in the minds of individuals, particularly since we have used a different value system in the past.
It should be emphasized that output of R&D should never be defined narrowly in terms of publications only. At a time when world over publications (specially the quantity) are treated with caution, it will be foolish to adopt this narrow and somewhat outdated view. Clearly, for a technical institute like ours, focus on R&D should encompass all aspects of R&D, including technology development, patents, designs, products produced, and so on. And this new value system focusing on R&D output should also emphasize quality of output in terms of impact it has on peers, corporations, practice, etc.
This shift in value system is, by-and-large, agreed by most as is reflected in the fact that informal discussions now revolve more around how to enhance R&D rather than initiatives or innovation in teaching. However, without a clear articulation of a shift to this value system, the past value system seems to be sometimes used to justify a decision which seems to be taken on some other grounds. For some reasons, we are not prepared to clearly state a value system that is consistent with modern aspirations, perhaps because an articulation of a clear value system also brings with it constraints on decisions that may be taken.
The time has come to clearly and unambiguously articulate that the academic value that IITK cherishes most is knowledge and intellectual property creation, and that everything else is secondary. Honesty in pursuit of this value can perhaps be shown by making public the CV of each person selected on any post, and asking for reference letters from peers for selection at any post. If such a value system is clearly articulated and shown to be followed, not only will it help the evaluators focus and evaluate more consistently, it can also help the “candidates” focus their energy and set suitable expectations. |
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