Dikhyaa Mohanty 
Prof. Aparajita Chowdhury has been a Professor of Home Science for about three decades where she takes pride in being the first PhD degree holder in Home Science from the state of Odisha. She has specialized in Human Development and Family Studies. In 37 years of her career, she had the privilege of holding prestigious posts like Member syndicate, Director College Development Council, Dean Faculty of Humanities and Social Science, Professor-in-Charge of University Library, NAAC coordinator, Director Women’s Studies Research Centre, Head of the Department and Hostel Superintendent. She has written ten books and more than 85 research articles published in both National and International peer-reviewed refereed journals. She is a member of various national and international academic bodies and acted as a resource person, subject expert, and engaged in social consultancy activities during her professional career.
Currently, she holds the post of Vice-Chancellor at Rama Devi Women’s University as an academic administrator. Talking about the inspiration she mentioned about APJ Abdul Kalam’s quote- “Teaching is a noble profession that shapes the character, calibre, and future of an individual.” She believes every young mind is like a mass of clay that can be moulded and given a proper shape.” She always wanted to be an instrumental force in moulding young, vulnerable, and impressionable minds in guiding them to educate them, make them understand life and sensitize them. Hence, she came into this noble profession of teaching. She feels there is a tremendous amount of satisfaction in building great careers for young people.
When she joined, she found the lack of an inbuilt mechanism in many aspects of the functioning of this university. It was a great challenge for her to give shape to the University Administration, teaching and Learning. Also, there was a crunch in the strength of faculty and non-teaching staff. She decided from the first day she joined to turn every seemingly adverse situation into an opportunity and bring a positive and visible outcome for all stakeholders of this University. With her continuing sincere endeavours, she is quite confident that she will be able to achieve success.
She further says the intensity of Covid-19 may have decreased. But the fear and the paranoia of Covid still remains. She is not sure if it is a ‘post-covid’ world as of now. She mentions masks remain. She adds My teachers are still gasping for breath as they are trying to teach in the classrooms with these masks on their noses and mouths. Some students are still staying away from the classrooms owing to the fear of getting infected. She says Every day it is a challenge to return to the physical mode of classes, encouraging the students to return. She also adds that they are trying to give them a safe environment by sanitizing the premises and keeping them clean as well as maintaining social distance in classrooms and meeting rooms. She makes sure that no matter what the situation is, the teaching and research continue and don’t get affected under duress. She further adds we have moved much ahead of other state universities in terms of regular classes and teaching in both online and offline modes.
When asked about challenges she faced, she answered “every single day, since I joined, has been challenging for me. But I have enjoyed facing these different kinds of challenges. It has helped me grow as an academic, as an administrator, and as a human”. She quotes a popular quote as: “A life without challenges isn’t a life”. I would describe my stint as a Vice-Chancellor in this university as interesting, insightful, and a great learning process. Learning never ends.
Within a short span of my joining as the VC, this university bagged the coveted UGC 12B certification. She feels very happy and proud about the sincere efforts of my faculty and staff who cooperated with me in achieving this. Also, she feels the university is doing very well despite handicaps like the limited strength of faculty and staff. The students are also getting impressive placements during this academic session.
She mentions that she sees a lot of scope of reform and development in the education sector in a developing state like Odisha. However, the biggest challenge is to draw quality teachers into the educational sector. She even goes on to say that Today if you ask a school kid: “What is your aim?” rarely will you get the response that he or she wants to become a teacher. The respect that erstwhile teachers had is deteriorating. She feels youth today are drawn towards other professions and very often, teaching becomes the last priority of a bright mind because they do not consider it lucrative enough or ‘cool’ enough if you wish to use the terminology of the youth. She emphasizes that they need to understand that as the profession of doctors, teaching is also a noble one. Teachers build nations. Teachers build character. Teachers build homes by carving personalities. They are sculptors. She believes We need more able sculptors for improving the education scenario.
Being a Women’s University of the State with all-girl students and maximum women faculty, we have ensured their safety by forming a sexual harassment committee in the University. She mentions that the University has installed CCTV cameras in the corridors and in important entry points. She intends to install CCTV cameras at other places on campus as well for the better safety of our students and teachers. Keeping in mind menstrual hygiene, the University is also planning to install sanitary pad vending as well as disposal machines in washrooms of girl students. For providing support to young women faculty members and research scholars on campus, she plans to set up a crèche on the University Campus.
She intends to make teaching-learning more effective by introducing new pedagogical techniques in the future. She intends to make the students understand the true value of education by inculcating in them human values, ethos, sensitivity, and a sense of appreciation of their own culture and tradition that seems to be deteriorating with every generation. For the faculty, the aim is to provide a conducive environment that involves their minds in cutting-edge and socially relevant research.
No wonder the present time due to the Covid-19 pandemic demands online education. But she feels nothing can replace the conventional or offline method of teaching. However, she accepts the fact that the university did not have adequate infrastructure facilities for online classes. Additionally, students seemed to digress during online lectures, due to the fact that teachers were not proficient enough to deliver teaching-learning to the students. The kind of rapport and communication that teachers can establish during the offline mode of teaching seemed to be absent during online classes. So, according to her personal opinion, online teaching, though the need of the hour, can never be better than offline teaching. Having said that, she also mentions, “I cannot deny the advantages of the online mode of teaching-learning.” The University has already started incorporating a blended mode of learning in the campus so as to tap the best potential of teachers and resource persons across the globe. Gradually, things are improving and students are getting ready for a physical model of teaching. Further, teachers are also upgrading themselves for a blended model of teaching on the campus.
Written & Research By- Ansuman Mohanty & Prisita Das
