With 24 years of experience in the corporate world, Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow’s Assistant Professor Vinod Kumar Chib believes that industry interface is “a must” for management students. So it’s no wonder that he loves to take students on field trips to various industries, where they get first-hand, face-to-face exposure to the industrial world.

“Almost 80 per cent of boys and 95 per cent of girl students have never been exposed to such big activities and production plants in their lives,” said Asst. Prof. Chib. “They remain mesmerised and claim that this is one of the only and most major of exposures outside the institute campus, where they get to see corporate activities with their own eyes.”

Due to his years of experience as a production and quality control manager with companies such as Britannia Industries Ltd. and later on with the general insurance sector, Asst. Prof. Chib is able to share his own shop-floor knowledge with students and connect industry-related live issues with the course.“Today students have a different perspective towards studies, they are knowledgeable, like to have fun while studying and expect good placements. The best way to ensure their participation in the classroom is by their involvement in discussions. With my industry experience, I engage them with live issues from the corporate sector connected to what is in the course, thus making their participation very interesting.”

To get students involved in these real-life situations, he first outlines the chapter to be covered in class, details its relevance to the course and then takes a current issue or problem facing industry and connects it to the course. This sparks enthusiasm and participation from the students. “They feel proud of sharing their observations on those issues” said Asst. Prof. Chib. “At times, I am amazed by their analytical minds and active participation. In short, I make them realise that they are at the core of the problem and they have to find the solution to the problem. It prompts them to participate actively.”

As part of the operations management faculty, Asst. Prof. Chib is working on a few papers covering topics in operations management and insurance management, as well as working toward his PhD. His responsibilities at Jaipuria, Lucknow also include: Chairperson, Faculty Co-ordinator – Library Activity Committee, Group Co-ordinator Library User Satisfaction Committee ( all four campuses ) and being a member of the Purchase Committee, Student’s Welfare Committee, PGDM Part Time Committee and the National Conference IIC-2012 Promotion Committee. He has little time to spare.

Recalling one of the prouder moments in his life, he said he wrote a joint research paper with his son on a petroleum engineering problem. “My son provided the technical details of the paper and with my engineering background, we prepared the paper and presented it at the International Conference at PDPU, Petroleum University, Ahmedabad. The contents of the paper were well received by the industry doyens, as it was a huge cost-cutting and saving technique for the industry.”

As a result, his son came to the attention of the petroleum sector and he says, “Today, I am the proud father of the first fishing engineer of Indian origin in the world, a sector totally controlled and dominated by foreigners (of non-Indian origin ).”