No student of the Centre for Management Studies in Jain University graduates without knowing Sankaran Madhavan, a 59-year-old professor responsible for corporate relations, training, placement and ensuring quality of the institute.
Heading the public relations and quality initiatives at the institute, Prof Madhavan is known for his impeccable communication skills bolstered by his English literature background as well as his experience of having started the Department of Media Studies at Jain University, which he headed for close to six years.
“I have learned two important things from my students, humility and integrity, and they are helping me discharge my duties,” he said. “I was into theatre and that gives me my peculiar style of speaking, and many of my good friends were from television, from whom I drew inspiration to start a media department,” he adds.
“I was new to it when I agreed to take up PR and quality initiation. But now the story is different. After starting the media studies department, I realised that class teaching was not enough and that both students and teachers need industry experience. Thanks to some corporate relations exercises, we are now in a position to get big corporate and media houses to take students for internships and provide potential employments,” he explained.
Playing the PR for the university and teaching has been difficult for Prof Madhavan. “I am now concentrating more on my present assignment while I continue to be associated with the media studies department as a programme advisor. I hope to start teaching again soon,” he says. The print media class will incorporate the atmosphere of a newsroom soon and he plans to arrange for industrial training for teachers as well.
— work.sayantan@gmail.com