I WOULD like to talk about why one needs visiting faculty, especially in a country like India. Think through the reasons for inviting visiting faculty, and the areas in which you need them. In the best Indian institutions, we (academics) use visiting faculty not for ‘routine teaching’ but to improve the quality of instructors. In my university, many of our junior faculty members do not have enough experience in teaching. Thus, we try to get experienced faculty to guide and help them to learn and grow. We do not expect such senior faculty to teach regular classes. We expect that they will help junior faculty learn by taking a class on an ad hoc basis, giving them access to material and doing one-on-one mentorship. Thus we have visiting faculty in areas where we don’t have senior faculty and mentorship. Use your contacts and spread the word around. There’s no systematic platform for looking for faculty so you have to use personal contacts. I wish there was some magical formula to look for them but there isn’t. This is an area where credibility is extremely important. I spent 18 years at Georgia Tech and the past 10 years at University of Arkansas. So I have contacts in every possible discipline in engineering and even outside. The 16 people who have come in are all here because they knew me either directly or through other contacts. A lot depends on the leader of the institution. In the US, the faculty may go on annual sabbaticals once in six years. They are allowed to take a semester off. Many professors take up visiting assignments during that time. However, one has to curb the urge of settling for anyone who is free and agrees to come as this could be disastrous for both parties. Both American academics and Indian-American academics are interested in coming to India if they can be convinced that the experience they will have will be meaningful and will contribute positively to their professional development. Establish credentials before you decide to approach an institution for MoUs for faculty exchange. In India we attach a lot of significance to MoUs but, unfortunately, we do not use them to do anything useful other than displaying it on the institution’s website. What we as administrators and academics hope, is that the MoU will attract more students to the university. It is because of this that Indian universities have earned a bad name in the United States. When I was a Dean at the University of Arkansas, I received at least half-a-dozen such requests every year for the nine years that I was at the helm of affairs. The university also signed a few MoUs. Americans treat MoUs very seriously—as it has to be signed by the board of trustees and reviewed by a whole bunch of lawyers. There is a lot of work involved and universities do not want to go through it unless they are convinced that the desire to collaborate is genuine, and only when they feel assured that the brand name will not be improperly used. We should strive for MoUs that clearly articulate win-win situations. My approach would be to create a track record of success and do some relevant work without an MoU first. Once the credentials are established, then one can propose formal agreements. So, create win-win situations for all. Getting people to come to you is not just about how many people you know, it is more about creating the win-win situation. You really have to understand who they are, what they can teach and what their needs are. You should be absolutely sure that you are in a good position to fully utilise the ability of the people that you bring in. People look to make meaningful contributions and if they feel that they are not being utilised fully, they tend to get disenchanted. In negotiating deals for visiting faculty, I convince my university colleagues that bringing in a visiting professor will be good for us. On the other hand, I also try to convince the visiting professor that it will be an enriching experience for him or her as well. This must then be followed up by ensuring that everyone realises their expectations. It is not just Indian Americans who want to explore the Indian academic environment today. Even Americans are drawn to India more than other emerging hot spots for education like China. Jonlee Andrews, Chair of the Full-Time MBA Programme at Kelley School of Business, Indiana University who came to School of Inspired Learning (SOIL) as part of an MoU with her university says that she saw this as an opportunity to learn more about another part of the world. Though the Indian accent was difficult for her to understand it certainly was an advantage that everyone understood English. Apart from the advantage of having English as the medium of teaching, India is also regarded as a much warmer and friendlier place. Here it is very common for people to be invited to homes. Whereas in Japan, China or Korea if people want to entertain you, they will probably take you to a five star hotel, but there will (rarely) be a one-on-one connect. It is primarily these factors which motivated me to think that in case I created positions for people to come and teach for one or two years in areas where there was plenty of supply in the US and a dearth of supply here—mostly humanities and social sciences—it could work out. Unfortunately the quality of faculty that I interviewed locally was really poor. There were PhD scholars in English who could not string two sentences together beyond the title of their thesis. I feel that if we bring people from outside and let them mingle here with our people then we can create the dynamics where everyone’s level is raised. If we launched this programme finding people would be the last of my worries. It is using them well and making their time worthwhile here that would be my primary worry. Also Indian American academics—especially those towards the end of their career—are eager to come back. Most of them are driven by the idea of making an impact and giving back to the country that made them who they are today. At a personal level, I lived here for the first 21 years of my life. I was able to go to IIT Kanpur and get a great education for literally nothing and it prepared me for who I am. Here I am at the end of my career, my children are all settled, and I have health and energy—so why not go to a place where I can make the most impact? I could have very easily stayed as the Dean of Engineering at University of Arkansas or even become Provost of a university in the US but I felt that it would not have as much of an impact as my spending a few years in India. Plan ahead. Work in advance and have a strategy to make the best use of the time of your visiting faculty. Avoid the tendency to postpone planning to the last minute. Since they are out of their home environment you have to also ensure that they are comfortable and their transition is smooth. Some of them may have young children and may want to bring their families along; in that case you have to make sure that their entire family is comfortable. We are developing a system to work well in advance with someone who has a sabbatical coming up to get them here during that time. We plan to spend several months going back and forth on how the visit can be beneficial for both sides. For instance, In the Galgotias University–when we got the former Director of Marketing at HP Vinay Khanna to teach for a semester—we spent over three months with him to develop as many case studies as possible for MBA courses that he is teaching. Professor Khanna has rich real-world experience that is uncommon among our traditional faculty; and on the other hand, he is looking at a second career in teaching. So his one semester stint at the Galgotias—we would like to believe—opened other avenues for him. Since he was indeed thinking of making the transition from industry to academia, the experience should have been invaluable for him. And the rich collection of case studies that he brought with him to share with our students was a huge gain for us; a perfect winwin situation for both of us if you ask me.