Ensuring a faculty of eminence is of critical importance for the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore in its coming years, Prof Pankaj Chandra, the newly-appointed Director of the institute, said. The Director was speaking to reporters on Thursday on his plans for the premier institute during his tenure.

“Nurturing, retaining and hiring excellent faculty will be the most important challenge. I don’t have a plan but there are certain thoughts, that include setting up of chairs to attract eminent faculty,” he said. He said knowledge generation in tandem with the country’s growth, fostering dialogues among stakeholders on issues of national and international relevance, developing IIM-B as a model of diversity and building bridges between IIM-B and other educational institutions were his top priorities.

Autonomy issue
Speaking on the recent exchanges between the Union Government and IIM Boards on the issue of autonomy, Prof Chandra said autonomy was critical for all higher education institutions.

“The real issue is excellence and how all of us can come together and ensure that. I have no reason to believe that the government will not support us in our endeavour,” he said.

Prof Chandra, who took over as IIM-B Director on December 3, said more industry-classroom interaction was in his agenda. Classroom diversity — in backgrounds, regions, social mix, gender and nationalities — would also be a focus area.

Prof Chandra did his PhD from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and has taught at the IIM-Ahmedabad and McGill University, Montreal. He has also worked with the World Bank.

The Allahabad-born Prof Chandra has manufacturing management and hi-tech entrepreneurship among his research interests.