Friday, April 29, 2011

Ethernet to all campus residences

IIT Kanpur was one of the first campus in the country to be completely wired up. Every hostel room, every office room, all labs, and every room in the guest house had an Ethernet connection. The residences in IIT Kanpur being very spread out were connected through ADSL. But ADSL could only give download speeds of a couple of Mbps. And finally, Computer Center decided that a fiber network needs to be laid in the residential part of the campus as well. The work is almost in its finishing stages, with Ethernet access enabled in most residences.

Big thanks to Navpreet Singh, and his team at Computer Center, along with Prof. Amalendu Chandra, Head of CC.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Prof. Suchitra Mathur chosen for Distinguished Teacher Award

From an email from Dean, Faculty Affairs:

"Prof. Suchitra Mathur of the HSS Department has been chosen for the Gopal Das Bhandari Memorial Distinguished Teacher Award-2011. This award is to honour, annually, an outstanding teacher from the perspective of the graduating under-graduate batch. Prof. Suchitra Mathur was chosen by the student community for this award."

I am not surprised. Anyone who has been taught by her would only ask, why has it taken so long. I remember that as a tutor in the course on "Communication Skills," I attended one lecture of hers, and after that, it was not possible to miss those lectures. If any faculty member or a budding academician wants to know what is high quality teaching, they only need to attend one lecture of hers. I have definitely picked up a few things from attending her lectures, which I try to follow in my own lectures.