The 'Think Tank' (pt. 1)

    Last Tuesday, I attended my first Think Tank meeting at the Writer’s Nook at MCC MRF Innovation Park. The name ‘Think Tank’ seemed to make me a bit worried. The thought being surrounded by great minds thinking, ideating, debating in the same room as you, when you barely try to comprehend the high language spoken by great minds, is quite the ordeal. Reminds me of the time my dad took me to the local book club when I was in school, where I watched serious people talk about serious stuff, which was too huge for me to comprehend.

    Jokes aside however, it was a greatly rewarding experience. I got the chance to listen from the experts, the great arguments put forward by the students and even participated in a quiz where I got third! Also, we had a session hosted by the poetry wing, Poetry X of our department. In short, a great afternoon indeed! Hoping to attend their next session soon.

    I decided to dig deeper, so I took the opportunity to interview our professor Dr. S. Samuel Rufus, who is of the key ideators of the ‘Think Tank’ community. If you read my first blog, you would see that he was the one to suggest blogging!

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Interview with Dr. Samuel Rufus on ‘Think Tank’

(27/Feb/2025, 9:30 AM)

This happened in the year 2022, when three students, or rather four, interviewed the Principal for an idea, an overview of the college, its infrastructure, its resources, and how the Principal wants to steer the college 10 years from now. So, any leader is also a visionary, a visionary in the sense, a leader is someone who not only takes the people along with him, but a leader is someone who has a concrete vision about the future. So, in that sense, our Principal has this vision about the future. So, these students, when they interviewed him, it started around 12 o'clock, then it went on to 3:15 in the afternoon. The Principal was very impressed in the way the students asked him questions, the students are Ganesh Aditya, he was doing his second MA then, then Malar, his classmate, Joanna from third BA, then Souparno, your classmate. He was from 3 BA. So, these students interviewed him and after that, the Principal said why don't we have a panel discussion with the same students on Founders’ Day? Founders’ Day is usually on Third of April. Usually, the Principal has a meeting with the faculty members but for the first time he suggested we involve students in Founders’ Day celebrations because considering the immense potential he was mightily impressed and then he suggested a panel discussion. We had a panel discussion with around six students in the panel on Founders Day from 9:30 till 11:00. They presented their vision and mission for college. One more student from Third BA English, Hemanth, spoke very well. Tejaswini from Physics Department and Joannah were there for the Founders’ Day panel discussion as well. This was documented and even before that Principal had an idea of Think Tank in mind.

Then we had a student that very next year, Jerusha from first MA Philosophy. She had very good ideations in her mind and in fact she was the one who gifted me a book called ‘The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life’. She had a concrete plan of action and she proposed strategies for the Think Tank and Principal suggested we have a Think Tank and meet up every week so. We had Jerusha as the coordinator for the activities of the Think Tank and at every Wednesday at 3 pm we used to meet in the Writer's Nook at MCCMRF innovation park. So, this is a place where student ideators of all hues, all colours, all departments, all units they can come together if they have an ideation. They can come present their idea be it an idea for a book, a club, it could be an idea for a society or a fellowship it could be anything. So, whoever has an idea can ideate on that and can get suggestions based on these ideations that they have presented.

So, there are three parts; one is ideation. After the ideation we have an incubation period, like how an egg takes an incubation time to hatch. So, an incubation period exists where this idea is incubated properly in the proper format and then finally it comes under the innovation or the final phase where it is converted into the final product. For example, Lekhaa from second BA she ideated a program called ‘Teaching Reading Skills for School Students’. She said today's school students are very distracted. So, they don't have their reading skills on them because of these distractions by technological gadgets around them. She suggested a reading skills strategy for the school students. She presented this idea before the Principal who was very impressed. He asked her to draft a proposal on that. We involved the Director of Extension Programs her name is Dr. Belinda, who helped her draft a proposal. This was then taken to the Department of English under Dr. Franklin Daniel who immediately ratified it and they made sure this was made into a functional Service-Learning Program. Now you might ask me what a Service-Learning Program is. Service becomes learning, not only just listening to classes. For example, you have a service to offer like cultivating cleanliness among people. You could do it as a service; it also counts as learning. She's doing it as a Service-Learning Program for society. Shas a core team of around ten students and every week they go to certain schools in and around Tambaram and there is a faculty coordinator Prof. Sam Paul from our Department. He takes care of the you know the program.

After Jerusha became the coordinator of Think Tank, every Wednesday we meet up at three o'clock and give attendance that is OD for students from the SFS. We ideate a lot of new clubs, fellowships or societies; one was a Newspaper Club ideated by Miss Durga from MA History, one was a Women's Cricket Club ideated by Shannon Patricia, our own senior student. One was a Quiz Club ideated by Ben Francis from BA History and a Dancer’s club by Ascentana if I'm right. Four clubs and Societies have been ideated this year and twenty-three students have published their books that are available.

From the faculty side what we want to do is that for the first time in many years we want to engage faculty and students in a form of a dialogue. We used to have debates and dialogues with teachers where students voiced genuine grievances and issues that they face. Then the teachers or the officials of the college looked into while trying to remedy these situations. However, for almost ten years the concept of debate or dialogue between staff and students had almost waned so Principal tried to resurrect that. We have had many interactions, for example tertiary education or research for undergraduate students. These are some of the topics that we have discussed and some topics that border on controversy. Controversy in the sense of some topics that need to be addressed or discussed like mandatory attendance.

So next week on the 5th of March we are having a program for staff and students. We have a dialogue, a debate next week. If you are free, you can also join us. Another topic will be discussed with the students and based on that; we formulate strategies for the future. So, whatever we do today from Think Tank, our ideations our discussions, debates, dialogues are just platforms that mould the future for academia especially in MCC. So last week we had the Dean of Research and Development, Research Coordinator, MCCRC Research Colloquium Coordinator and Writer's Cafe Coordinator. We came together and discussed all the prospects on writing, research, publications, and the students asked genuine questions. So, this is the broad framework of Think Tank. We have lots of ideas but whatever we do, we do it only based on student suggestions. The staff members who came were based on recommendations from students. We did not choose them. We asked the floor because we wanted teachers who will be non-judgmental, who will not condemn or judge or heap consequences on the student based on their observations. We would call it a safe space where students can pour out their heart, their genuine issues, grievances, suggestions for the college based on which the management might act for the benefit of the student and the faculty for the future. The Think Tank in essence is a safe space where ideas get ideated with the future of MCC. 

-Dr. S. Samuel Rufus

Stopping the blog here for now. Part two will have me asking questions to sir regarding the Think Tank. Stay Tuned!

Until next time dear reader,

Alan