REPORT -  Faculty Workshop at North Maharashtra University

Educational Resources Centre organised a faculty workshop at the North Maharashtra University, jalagaon, from 15 - 18 March 2001. This workshop was conducted as a consequence of the growing demand, generated by similar workshops in the past at the same campus and all over the country. Though ERC has organised two-three workshops at NMU earlier, covering about a hundred teachers, some colleges under the university wanted ERC to conduct more such workshops for their faculty. Therefore, ERC has made its presence again on the NMU campus, now with the active collaboration of NMU and M.J.College, Jalagaon.

Twenty-five faculty members from different colleges under the university affiliation and also from the university departments participated in the workshop. The workshop was formally inaugurated by the Vice - Chancellor of the university, ProL S. E Patil. Speaking on the occasion, the Vice - Chancellor credited Campus Diversity Initiative for its impact on the faculty and the campus and expressed the desire that all the faculty members should attend these workshops. He also emphasised that CDI played an important role in the four star accreditation of the relatively young university by the National , Accreditation and Assessment Council, a quality monitoring institution in the field of higher education in India.

The workshop began with an informal session for participants to know each other which helped in facilitating the opening up of the group. The successive sessions focussed on bringing out the real images of the teachers in their classrooms, with colleagues, and on the campus, through a set of meticulously developed instruments. This self discovery was not intended to arrive at a judgement of right and wrong methods, but to assess their effectiveness and help them  work towards increased effectiveness. At the end of these sessions, it is quite encouraging to hear a few participants saying, "We have understood our role as teachers

The opinion of Mr.Saligram Dhoman Patil, lecturer, Shrimati H.R.Patel Mahila College, reflected the general mood at the valedictory, "this programme is quite successful in realising the limitations as well as merits of our teaching an behaviour towards the students. But, this one programme is not sufficient. So the participants of the same group should be given another opportunity to participate and improve our teaching skills and style."

more clearly and we will take more efforts for students and the society". In the words of a teacher, "I am able to analyse myself and know where I stand. The workshop helped me in improving myself. Moreover, 1 came to know how to develop my relationship with my students".

The participants have also discussed curricular reform in their respective subjects. The issues and challenges raised by teachers teaching different subjects presented a few similarities across all subjects and a few were specific to each discipline. On the whole there appeared a general demand for reform across all disciplines to make learning interesting by inculcating the values of self learning, discovery, and also keeping pace with the latest trends in the industry, commerce, science and society.

In the end it was agreed that the university will take necessary steps to sustain the momentum generated by the workshop. For instance, NMU could take the initiative in organising inter-college events for faculty and students. This would keep open channels of communication and facilitate a dialogue as well as sharing of experiences. CDI and NMU have enriched each other and w-Ul continue to do so, as the spirit of CDI is evident in every member of the NMU community.