IIM-Tiruchy: Faculty is its USP
b-school,” says Aravind Thayat, a first-year student of IIM-T, who doesn’t regret joining the only IIM in Tamil Nadu.IIM-T, the 11th IIM in the country started its journey on January 4, 2011, when its foundation stone was laid by Kapil Sibal, Union minister for human resource development and telecommunication.
As of now, the institute is functioning within the National Institute of Technology-Tiruchy campus, as a permanent premises is under construction.It is being developed on 192 acres of land, with Bharathidasan University and Anna University of Technology on either side. “It will take two-three years to complete the first phase. It will include an academic block, hostels, library, faculty quarters, guest houses, recreational facilities and other basic needs at a cost of Rs 300 crore,” says Godwin Tennyson, chairperson, placement and external relations, IIM-T.He assures that other additional facilities like Wi-Fi connection in hostels will also be arranged on the new campus. This does not mean the current batch lacks the facilities that any college student would expect. IIM-T’s director Prafulla Agnihotri has ensured the students have access to the recreational and sporting facilities and net cafe on the NIT campus. “We have so far spent Rs 75 lakh on a library, which includes both books and journals and we are planning to spend another Rs 15 lakh for furnishing the same,” says Tennyson.The first postgraduate programme was inaugurated on June 15, 2011. Meleveetil Damodaran, former chairman of SEBI, heads the board of governors, and director Agnihotri is a former marketing professor of IIM-Calcutta. “The credentials of the director and the fact that the director started interacting with the aspirants even before the college started were the main reasons for choosing IIM-T over other new IIMs,” says Gopi Krishnan, a student.“What differentiates IIM-Trichy from all other new IIMs is the illustrious permanent faculty. In the short run, these faculty members will in turn help produce very high quality management graduates, which is just the head start that a startup b-school looks for,” says Abhijit Paul, another student.
The institute, indeed, calls the permanent faculty strength as its USP. The recruitment process for faculty started in February 2011, which saw over 360 applicants for just 12 full-time positions. “Two more faculty members are expected to join the IIM-T family by June and we may increase the number to 20 by year-end,” says Tennyson. The faculty recruited including a French national, hail from premier institutions like IITs, IIMs and foreign universities.“The impressive student faculty ratio was one of the major reasons I chose IIM-T. This has indeed proven to be a major strength of our institute and we students have greatly benefited from it,” says Pavithra Balaji. The faculty members have published their research work in reputed international journals and conferences, both in India and abroad, and are members of professional bodies like Association of Information Systems, Society of Operations Management and Organisational Behaviour. They have also conducted in-house management development programmes in reputed organisations. The students of IIM-T come from diverse academic and work backgrounds, including botanists, a dentist, an architect, a teacher and a pharmacist. The selection process for the students consisted of a shortlisting process based on CAT scores, which was followed by a group discussion and personal interview.
There are 84 students, with a median CAT score of 98.23 percentile, in the first batch.Having successfully concluded its summer placement for the current batch, 40 companies recruited 83 students for internships in various domains such as marketing, finance, operations, HR, consulting and strategy. The companies include P&G International, Berger Paints, Tata Metaliks, HSBC, ING Vysya, ICICI, Cognizant Business Consulting, Mahindra and Mahindra GMC, IBM Research, Wipro, Tata Chemical, etc. The average stipend offered for internship was Rs 53,000, excluding travel, accommodation and other benefits, and the highest domestic offer was Rs 1.2 lakh.The institute has decided to offer a fellow programme in management (a PhD equivalent), from the next academic year. “We are willing to take upto 10 students for the fellow programme and these students will be paid a stipend of Rs 30,000 monthly. For the next academic year, we are planning to admit 120 students for PGP in management,” adds Tennyson.
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