Summary of the General Body Meeting of the Faculty Association, IISc

held on 14 Feb 2003 at Choksi Hall from 4:30pm onwards

Agenda:

1. Remembering Prof. Anil Kumar who passed away
2. Confirmation of the minutes of the previous GBM
3. President's remarks
4. Secretary's report
5. Items from the members

· Reconstitution of the Executive Committee of FA- N. C. Sivaprakash

· FA awards to IISc staff – Jayant Haritsa

1. A few moments of silence were observed in memory of Prof. Anil Kumar who passed away in a tragic accident.
2. The minutes of the previous GBM were sent by email to all members. The minutes were proposed, seconded and passed.
3. The President made the following observations: The president started by summarizing the broad thrust of the FA's activities over the last year. He remarked that most of the issues raised by the FA during the year were a follow up of the items discussed during the "Open House" meeting of the faculty in April 2001, but there were a few additional issues. He pointed out that not much has been done to address the various grievances of the faculty - the housing of faculty in campus, poor quality of administrative support, accountability of the administration, the explosion of vehicular traffic in campus are some, where little or no progress has been achieved. There are some issues on which the FA has been successful in effective positive change - the appointment of Mr. Gajendra Barik to serve as a liason officer for faculty and help them in their non-academic problems is one, the improvement of the telephone system and internet connectivity are others. Other successful efforts of the FA were to get the reimbursement of monthly telephone charges, given only to professors by the V pay commission, extended to associate and assistant professors, and to convince that administration that an itemized list of direct deposits to the bank accounts of every faculty member be included in their Respective salary slips every month. The president concluded by remarking that the body of the faculty showed very little interest in the faculty association, and wondered about the relevance of the association in this light.

4. The Secretary presented the report of the activity till date:
• The EC and office bearers have met several times to plan the activities.The Office bearers of FA met the Director, Associate Director and the Registrar a few times.
• Housing: FA had repeatedly raised the issue of lack of adequate housing on campus. Director promised that it will be considered once the X plan is finalized.
• FA had pressed for the implementation of reimbursing phone charges for all faculty in the pay scale of an Assistant Professor, and above. It was promised that it would be placed before the council for approval.
• FA had pressed for the finance section to include the details of payments made to faculty from IISc in the monthly pay slip. It was promised that it would appear from the next financial year starting 01 Apr 03.
• FA had pressed for the continuation of the IISc Heritage Fund. Due to the initiative taken by FA, the Heritage Fund committee at IISc took steps to contact Prof. Kailath and keep the fund active. Due to this action, IISc will be able to receive a donation from DuPont worth $100,000.
• FA had prepared and sent forms to Dr. Mythily Kumar. She appreciated the effort of FA.
• FA had revived the newsletter with one issue in Sep 02.
• Need more volunteers to spare time for FA issues.
5. Items from Members
• N. C. Shivaprakash suggested a plan to restructure the EC:

(a) The president requested Dr N C Shivaprakash to present his suggestions with regard to the executive committee structure. Dr Shivaprakash in his presentation said the faculty Association was born on 30 October 1979. Initially it had FOUR categories with FOUR members each. Later in 2001 this was reviewed and implemented as SIX, FOUR, FOUR and TWO from Category I to IV respectively. The Executive committee (EC) consists of 16 EC members with 2 years term. Every year 8 of them would retire. It is a nice system At present we have 301,128, 41 and 14 members from Category I to IV respectively on the role of the Institute.. If we look at the numbers category-wise it is un-proportional. We don't have elections at all and always short of nominations. In fact last year there were 3 vacancies in the EC . Extending the last review principle, it would be 10,2,2, 2, which is not a solution. It is unlikely that there will any appointments in future for Lecturers, Scientific and Technical faculties. Also a faculty member who gets elected for a given Category , upon promotion, will have to continue to serve for his previous Category. In view of this, Dr Shivaprakash suggested the following:

1. Reduce the existing 16 EC members to 12 members. Five of them would be elected as Office bearers.

2. Remove the Category as all the members are equal. If any group wants to protect their interest , let them nominate their candidates.

3. Continue with 2 years term of EC with 6 members retiring every year.

• The GBM felt that the issue be discussed in the EC and presented in the next GBM for approval.
• Jayant Haritsa had a proposal to institute awards for staff of IISc:

(a) To achieve a more responsive and user-friendly administrative machinery in our institute, it is imperative that we recognize the individuals who have performed beyond the call of duty. This recognition will serve the dual purpose of ensuring that these individuals retain the enthusiasm to perform at their level of excellence, as well as encourage their colleagues to follow suit. Note that unlike faculty who have numerous avenues to receive external recognition, if not from the Institute itself, there is no such option for the administrative staff. That is, their efforts, no matter how praiseworthy, remain unheralded and unsung. To remedy this state of affairs, we propose that the Faculty Association

1. award Certificates of Appreciation on an annual basis.

2. The number is limited to a maximum of two per year to ensure that these certificates retain their prestige and are not a routine commendation that comes to everybody sooner or later.

3. A token cash award of Rs. 1000 will be made with the Certificate.

4. The decision on the award of the certificates will be made by a sub-committee of the EC of the FA, chaired by the President, FA.

5. The process will be the following:

a. During early February, nominations will be invited by the sub-committee from the FA members. Subsequently, the nominee list will be emailed to all members, and those who concur with a nomination should send a letter of support to this effect. In order to be eligible for final consideration, a nominee must receive at least three letters of support. The awards will be made on February 28, National Science Day. Any member of the Institute administration, including the Director, can be nominated. However, in general, preference would be given to workers downstream in the hierarchy.

• Members had many views and it was felt that this can be discussed in the EC and take action.
• Yadnavalkya suggested that FA should put pressure on the administration to ban child labour on campus
• The question of housing eligibility for scientific assistants was discussed. It was resolved that Scientific Assistants with Rs.8000-13500/- basic pay are eligible for D-Type quarters.

The Secretary thanked the members for their participation in the meeting.