On the occasion of Teacher’s Day, I thought it may be good to introduce our faculty to all prospective applicants. If you make it to the ISB PGP, our highly-accomplished faculty will be your mentors for the next one year, guiding you on the path towards leadership.
It has long been known that the minimum educational qualification to be an ISB faculty is Ph.D. from a strong research-oriented programme. The reason is that our faculty have a mandate to spend a significant portion of their time doing research, which not only adds to the global body of knowledge on management but also allows them to build their own expertise in those fields. Their published research is brought to the class, benefiting students. To learn more about this, read my previous post on the importance of faculty research.
Something that is a mainstay at ISB is our portfolio faculty model. It allows us to have the best of both worlds – Permanent Faculty from ISB who have a wealth of research and expertise relevant to India and other emerging markets, and Visiting Faculty who come from various B-schools across the globe and bring insights from their parts of the world. The students thus get significant exposure to global as well as local management theory and practice, preparing them for successful careers wherever they may go in the world. Overseeing all of this are the Area Leaders and Programme Leaders from our Associate Schools – Kellogg, Wharton, LBS, MIT Sloan and Fletcher – who collaborate with faculty on research and advise the administration on matters related to curriculum, programme delivery, etc. Many Area and Programme Leaders also teach in the ISB PGP.
I would suggest that applicants to PGP go through our faculty directory and become familiar with some of the interesting research that the faculty are doing. Would their areas of expertise be relevant to your career? If so, then why not build your own expertise in it by taking their classes and learning from their latest research? Find their research topics interesting? You may have the opportunity to work with them on specific projects (FIRP) in those areas. Of course, the faculty are available during class and office hours to share their knowledge with you. And they are always happy to do that!
I should also mention that our faculty are great fun to spend time with outside of class. They participate in events and activities along with students, be it in sports, theatre, cultural shows, etc and often make guest appearances in student skits! If you want to see a different side of our faculty, I would suggest you follow our student-run Life At ISB page on Facebook and @LifeAtISB handle on Twitter. In fact, there may even be some coverage of today’s Teacher’s Day celebrations and fun activities!
So let me sign off by wishing our faculty a very happy Teacher’s Day. I hope that many of you will get a chance to interact with and learn from them in the coming year.
All the best!
*Update: A previous edit erroneously stated that Area and Programme Leaders “guide faculty research.” While they may collaborate with ISB faculty on certain research topics, ISB faculty have their own research agendas and work in very diverse areas. My thanks to Professor Milind Sohoni for the clarification.