The minutiae of Jagran Lakecity Business School: Dr. Nilesh Khare, Director, JLBS

Jagran Lakecity Business School (JLBS) is a flagship business school at Jagran Lakecity University (JLU). While JLU, via its School of management, has been offering management education for the last 4 years, JLBS’s arrival underscores greater ambition to build an internationally benchmarked business school. And we have been evolving in that direction.

Thanks for inviting me to share our journey via Lakecity Brew. This is a great way to reach out to a larger JLU community and the outside world. I would like to share a few specific areas where we have made a good beginning.

Pedagogical Benchmarking 

Starting in Jan 2018 we are emphasizing greater use of benchmarked and innovative pedagogical practices in management education. Adoption of Smart AI Books on Learning Management Platform from the world leading publishers, a greater use of case studies including from Harvard, group assignments on real-world problems and presentations, and frequent interactions with industry experts are likely to provide needed impetus on rich content, and experiential and applied learning so often missing from Indian management education system.

Student engagement

We strongly believe that students at JLBS are apprentice managers and business leaders. We are moving to practices where most of our initiatives on the ground would be lead, delivered, and even conceived by student teams. This offers students great opportunity to be responsible, plan in real task contexts, run operations, face uncertainties, and experience and demonstrate leadership. Experiences such as these will help students discover hidden talents, build confidence, learn from failures and grow. This would be good on their CVs, help them tell great authentic stories in their job interviews, and make them attractive to employers. I am very proud of our student team that recently delivered very well on what they called JLBS Reboot, 2018— introduction to even semester, new initiatives, and changes at Jagran Lakecity Business School. Student placement and Industry relationship team have also taken its role to the next level. Of course, we do have individual achievers from academics, to entrepreneurship, to sports.        

Executive Functioning and Employability

While the JLBS makes its best efforts and has been increasingly more successful in attracting companies for internships and placement, we recognize that students’ interests and their careers go beyond the first job available from campus. We are explicitly focusing on building executive functioning capabilities that help select and monitor behaviours that facilitate attainment of goals and employability. This will help our graduates in succeeding beyond securing a job on campus in whatever they would choose to do from entrepreneurship, running their family businesses, to building a meaningful career as a professional manager/leader. The shift in conversation from mere campus placement to Executive Functioning and Employability has begun to help students take the ownership of their CVs—portfolio of knowledge, skills and experiences they would accumulate during their time at JLBS. Mentoring process is based on executive functioning approach and helps students recognize their goals and work toward them in supporting and encouraging environment. In addition to in curriculum regular classes for Career Enhancement, students now have access to services from external partners to hone soft skills and capabilities such as business English, Reasoning, and Quantitative Skills.  Among others, JLBS has also brought in Chicago Based firm that uses AI enabled custom Learning Management platform that focuses on improving scores on placement tests. It also strengthens executive functioning.

Exposure, Out-reach and Capability Augmentation

We are very proud to share that our Board of Advisors now includes very imminent academicians, and industry leaders from USA, India and a few other parts of the world. Over the next one to two years, JLBS stand to greatly benefit from active and deeper engagement with the board members. 

We are also in the process of setting up Board of Studies and faculty mentor panel that would include people of competence from academia and industry primarily from India and USA to help us with curriculum and program design and develop our faculty on an ongoing basis.  

We are actively looking at augmenting our faculty strength. We are very excited to share that some of our visiting faculty members from this semester would bring significant real-life work experience as business CEOs from India and USA. We expect quality faculty to join our ranks as full time or at-least in adjunct capacity in coming months.       

Our outreach efforts have begun to show some real engagement on the ground that would offer international and quality domestic exposure to our community. We recently hosted a short visit of cultural student exchange team from Missouri, USA. We are looking forward to more student and faculty exchange programs and International Immersive Degree programs in partnership with institutes such as University College London.

       

Working longer, harder, and smarter

JLBS realizes that if we were to set stretch goals and achieve them we need to work longer, harder, and smarter. We now have extended timing from 9:30 am to 4:00 pm for our regular classes. A good management education program is not a 9 to 5 job for either a student or a faculty. We have shared a break from 12:45 pm to 2:30 pm for common activities and industry interactions. Our alternative working Saturdays are marked for FDPs and research. Research focuses on faculty and PhD students, but it is open to all. We are very proud to be a part of JLU. It allows us to dream big. JLU offers us great support. We hope to make it proud of us too. I hope to continue to share our journey as we march on. Lakecity Brew you are doing an awesome job. Keep up the good work. Thanks a lot for the invite.

Women’s Rights are Human Rights: International Human Rights Day celebrated at Jagran Lakecity University

The debate over equality and the rights at the disposal of every human being just by the virtue of being one has been going for far too long. There have been endless discussions over women rights and that women need to be treated equally to men. Just for this one time, let us skip the bigger picture and get into the details of what these rights comprise.

The term feminism has often been made similar to man-hating and therefore the people actually responsible for gender inequality hide behind the terminology. Feminism by definition means “the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities.” Every person out there who misinterprets feminism for its exceptional favour to the female gender needs to understand that it actually means for a woman to be treated ‘equal to a man’ and not ‘like a man.’ Equality does not mean assuming the physical strength of a woman equal to that of a man but the right to earning equal wages to that of a man and having an opinion equally important as that of a male member of the team.

On the occasion of International Human Rights Day, the Jagran Lakecity University organized a one day workshop on ‘Women’s Rights are Human Rights.’ The workshop was conducted by Madhya Pradesh State Human Rights Commission in collaboration with Jagran School of Journalism and Communication. The Chief Guest for the event was Smt. Archana Chitnis, Minister for Women and Child Development. The workshop was attended by various dignitaries including Justice J.P. Gupta, Madhya Pradesh High Court, Jabalpur and Vice Chancellor Jagran Lakecity University, Prof. (Dr.) Anoop Swarup.

This workshop has been organized by the Madhya Pradesh State Human Rights Commission at various universities in M.P. an integral part of which is the elocution competition. Many students took part in the competition at JLU Bhopal and shared their views and ideas about the women’s rights and human rights in general. Amongst all participants across all colleges and universities, Sumaira Yasin, a student of Journalism and Mass Communication at JLU School of Media & Communication was adjudged the winner and received the certificate from the Chief Guest, Special Guest and the Vice Chancellor of JLU.​

India needs institutionalized reforms in ADR regime: Thomas P. Valenti at Jagran Lakecity University

Being a country of more than 1.2 billion, India sure has some staggering man power to account for the lacking. However, with a greater head count come greater disputes. The Indian Judicial system since its inception has taken several measures to improve its efficiency. However, there are some things better settled outside the line of litigation.

Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) refers to a variety of streamlined solutions used to resolve a conflict as an alternative to the formal legal system. The formal legal systems though effective have a huge number of cases pending. Also, not everybody can afford the time and funds required to bring a court proceeding to its final hearing. This is a condition worldwide, not just limiting to India. ADR has proven to be and extremely effective alternative to the formal legal system as unlike a normal court proceeding, it is taken care of with a comparatively very small amount of time and money.

The early 1980s saw a sudden increase in the number of cases being addressed by ADR. In 1999, the Indian Parliament passed the CPC Amendment Act of 1999 inserting Sec.89 in the Code of Civil Procedure 1908, providing for reference of cases pending in the Courts to ADR which included mediation.  The Amendment was brought into force with effect from 1st July 2002.

For making our students aware of the latest developments in the field of ADR, the Jagran Lakecity University Schoolof Law extended a warm welcome to an internationally renowned arbitrator and mediator Mr. Thomas P. Valenti for an interactive session with the students and faculties of JLU School of Law. The session was aimed at enlightenment of the faculties about the latest amendments in the ADR regime and its effects on the course of judgment. Mr. Valenti shared his vast experience as an internationally renowned arbitrator in the form of experiences that he gained along the way. He was delighted to know that the JLU School of Law had already established an ADR cell that would work on imparting practice based knowledge in ADR related aspects.

As an end note Mr. Valenti expressed his delight on being invited to Jagran Lakecity University and the interactive session with the students. The session ended with concluding remarks by Prof. (Dr.) Yogendra Shrivastava, Director, JLU School of Law who expressed his gratitude to Mr. Valenti for taking out the time to share his valuable experience with us.

Reminiscence: Jagran Lakecity University’s Alumni Meet 2017

It is true that the best moments of one’s life are those that miss out of the camera lens. A college more than being a place of education is a bag of memories, unaccounted and raw. It was a walk down the memory lane, just that the lane was a different one. The same bunch of college friends, just the spirit was a little different. For giving such a dose of nostalgia, college wasn’t such a bad place after all.

The second alumni meet of JagranLakecity University was a bitter-sweet affair where the alumni of JLU Bhopal enthusiastically took part in an evening of reliving old days. 16^thDecember 2017 saw Sayaji hotel, Bhopal flocked with the alumni of JLU Bhopal in the spirit of remembrance.

The students were welcomed by Dr. Vivek Khare, Dean Academics, JLU Bhopal with an opening remark. He was delighted to announce the formation of the JLU Alumni Association. The association shall be looked after by the JLU management for the initial two years, post which, the key members will be elected through poll. The students were ecstatic on being a part of an evening that most closely resembled their college days only in a more fun filled environment.

The evening started with cool games played amongst the students before dinner. The most liked prop on the venue was a special wall that became a favorite selfie point for the students. The bonding of old friends over food and music was a heartwarming sight. Also, the teachers were overjoyed on meeting their old students. It was definitely an evening to remember seeing old pals reunite and listening to old tales re-narrated.

Hustle! Hit! Never Quit! National Westzone Football Tournament (M) 2017 at Jagran Lakecity University

The game that has us sitting on the edge of our seats in a nail biting experience had taken the Jagran LakecityUniversity campus by a storm. The National Westzone Football Tournament 2017 was a sight that treated its viewers with an adrenaline kick.

A sport is not just about the fancy aspects of it. What seems like a child’s play on field is actually years of training paid with sweat. What seems like running around with ball for 90 minutes is actually 90 minutes of extreme concentration, skill and team work that leads to victories.

The National Westzone Football Tournament 2017 at Jagran Lakecity University saw a massive participation with over 57 teams coming in to participate in a week long tournament. The opening ceremony took place on 21^st December 2017 that was graced by various dignitaries including Prof. (Dr.) Anoop Swarup, Vice Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University, Dr. Vivek Khare, Dean Academics, Dr. C.A. Gurudath, Dean Academics, Chief guest, Mr. G.K. Shrivastava, President, District Football Association, Mr. Abhishek Mohan Gupta, Pro Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University, Mr. Pankaj Das, Deputy Registrar, Directors, Faculty members and students of Jagran Lakecity University.

The week after 21^st December saw teams battling against each other to qualify for a spot amongst the top four in a knockout tournament. Victory means nothing if obtained painlessly. The top four teams then played against each other to claim the spot that said ‘first’. The gold medal was bagged by Lakshmibai Institute of Physical Education, silver medal was bagged by Shivaji University, Kolhapur, bronze medal was bagged by Jagran Lakecity University, Bhopal and the consolation prize was awarded to University of Mumbai. The medals were awarded by Mr. Abhishek Mohan Gupta, Pro Chancellor, Jagran Lakecity University during the closing ceremony on 27^thDecember 2017