BITS Alumni Worldwide Join Prof SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award 2019 Virtual Ceremony to honour Dr VK Chaubey

When the going gets tough, the tough indeed get going is no ordinary saying. A teacher affects eternity and one can never tell where the influence stops. Prof SS Ranganathan (1940 - 2015) popularly known as SSR taught both at Pilani campus and Chennai off campus for 15 years (1978 - 1987 & 1994 - 2000) at institution of excellence in India today Birla Institute of Technology and Science - BITS Pilani. He was an epitome of teaching excellence who demonstrated an outstanding commitment and contribution to his students and colleagues.

With the dual intention of remembering Prof. SSR as well as encouraging the teaching community, a group of BITS alumni joined hands with their Alma mater to announce an award called as "Prof. SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award" to honor one member of the teaching staff from any of the Indian campuses of BITS involved in full time teaching for a minimum of six semesters. Operations Research subject expert BITS alum Prof Seshasayee and widely acclaimed IT industry doyen Distinguished Alumnus of BITS Pilani NS Parthasarathy Partha reached out to worldwide alumni in 2016 for working out the initial corpus amount of Rs 25 Lakhs for the award to get going.

The very first award for the year 2017 was given to Prof V Srinivasan of Pilani campus and the subsequent year to Prof Biju K Reveendran of KK Birla Goa campus. The third year award for 2019 was getting delayed due to corona virus COVID-19 lockdown for the past several months. For similar reasons, University of Maryland USA went ahead with a virtual convocation function in the last week of May 2020. Always a leader who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way, BITS Pilani took a bold decision to hold a virtual function on 02 June 2020 to felicitate the 2019 award winner Prof VK Chaubey of Pilani campus.

Worldwide alumni welcomed the decision and joined the virtual function with great enthusiasm. It was great to see alumni which included many of Prof SSR former students from Australia to America taking part in the function. Highly popular among BITSians, Prof MS Radhakrishnan a close friend of Prof SSR also graced the function. Starting with customary welcome and offering of floral tributes to Prof SSR, Vice Chancellor BITS Pilani Prof Souvik Bhattacharyya and Director of Pilani campus Prof Sudhirkumar Barai addressed the participants. Prof Arya Kumar gave an overview of the award and its selection process.

To a thunderous round of applause Prof VK Chaubey Head of Electrical Electronics Instrumentation department of Pilani campus was conferred the 2019 SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence award. The award included Rs. One Lakh in cash, a plaque and a Citation. Prof V K Chaubey received his master's degree with specialization in Electronics & Radio Physics and Ph. D. Degree in the field of Fiber Optics Communication from Banaras Hindu University , Varanasi , India in 1985 and 1992 respectively.

He was with the department of applied Physics, BHU IT during 1993 -94 as a UGC Post Doctoral fellow. Dr. Chaubey joined Birla Institute of Technology & Science, Pilani in 1994 and presently working as Professor in the Electrical & Electronics Engineering Department. His research interest includes Wireless & Optical Communication network design and simulation. Beaming with pride Prof Chaubey gave an exciting talk on Engineering Teaching Model: An Electrical Approach - Linear Response / Passive system correlating Resistance, capacitance, Inductance, Voltage and Current with learning habits of students.

Proud to be BITSians who were former BE (Hons) EEE students of Prof SSR namely E R Chandramouli (75-80), N Ramkumar (76-81) and D R Seetharaman (77-82) addressed the gathering. All three of them unanimously praised the broad based integrated interdisciplinary approach educational model of BITS Pilani and shared fond memories about Prof SSR. What emerged was the fact that Prof SSR undoubtedly stood for strength, dignity, courage and hope and served the cause of students, guiding them, being part of their joys, struggles and being a great example of living a life for others, thus leaving an unparalleled legacy for all those who are interested in learning and living life to the fullest.

Emotion choked Poonkuzhali daughter of Prof SS Ranganathan conveyed that the gesture of the alumni indeed touched the family members deeply and said that Prof SSR considered each and every student indeed as his own family member. Such initiatives of giving back by the Alumni to its alma mater, demonstrates once again the reason why PQ Passion Quotient for Alma mater is highest for BITS, Pilani. Partha gave a vote of thanks with a thunderbolt statement for the purpose of award which was to strengthen the teacher student bond and mutual respect. Prof Rajeev Sakhuja Associate Dean Alumni Relations coordinated and anchored the proceedings in the best possible manner.

For more details see BITSAA https://www.bitsaa.org/

Prof BR Natarajan
BITS Pilani Alumnus
Pilani Rajasthan India 333031
Phone: +91-9799476406
Email: brnatarajan@bitsaa.org

About BITSAA: BITS Alumni Association (BITSAA) has emerged as one of the strongest alumni networks of any university. BITSAA International engages in charitable and educational activities by raising funds for setting up endowments, creating scholarships, rewarding teaching and research and generally promoting the development of resources at Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, Dubai, Goa & Hyderabad campuses. BITSAA International also aims to strengthen the ties, friendship and communication amongst former students, alumni faculty and friends of the Institute. BITSAA International provides a number of channels for people to stay connected with each other and with Birla Institute of Technology & Science. Notable other alumni initiatives for BITS Pilani include Prof SSR Memorial Teaching Excellence Award, multi crore Pilani AtmaNirbhar Resource Centre PARC by 75-80 batch alumni, Prashant Anuradha Palakurthi Research Endowment and many more. For more on BITSAA see https://www.bitsaa.org/

This release was published on openPR.