Encounter With My Faded Past

In November 2017, I spent a few days in our ancestral village, Dasbidyadharpur (Satyabadi, Puri, Odisha), where we still own some land. It must be a few decades since I spent more than a day at a time there. It is a deeply rural place, both in terms of infrastructure and cultural setting. Most of the villagers recognised me as the grandson of so-and-so and the son of so-and-so. It was an encounter with my faded past. People there uphold a form of life that is rooted in centuries of tradition, which seemed to have been undermined variously by the new developments in post-independence India. In the few days I lived there, everyone was eager to share with me their personal stories of triumph and tragedy. These stories gave me a feel for the complications of being a paddy farmer in India today. But the village air was clean and the nights were starry. Around the village, vast paddy fields laden with paddy kernels rolled out far into the horizon. The experience led me to imagine some kind of a retreat there, where people from different contexts could come to engage in activities and conversations with the villagers, to enhance mutual understanding and envision new futures.

Dear Academic Colleagues

Academics, you stand at interesting spots,
You are but nodes in the internet of thoughts;
Anchored in ideas, ancient and new,
Downloaded free and easy to view.

From credulous, curious, oblivious students,
To kind, critical, and resentful friends;
Classrooms, committees, with relations grown,
Certainly there, you’re not on your own.

Statistical geniuses and language editors,
Blessed are they as confirmed co-authors;
In predatory journals where fees are cheap,
You will be known by the company you keep.

For CIs, PIs, and RAs on contract,
Unwilling participants, willing to retract;
Funders, regulators, and media galore;
Get ready with stories that impress and stir.

University leaders, directors, and deans,
Managers and auditors, counting their beans,
Unit panel members, silent as stone,
Seek their thoughts, by making yours known.

So it is with academics, present and past,
Nodes of thought, whose impact may last,
In proportion to their will, to listen and tell,
Adventures of mind that succeed or fail.

Notes.

Revised a few times between July and December 2017. This poem is based on my university experience in Sarawak, Malaysia. Of course I have taken the poetic license to highlight aspects of academic life selectively. The main purpose is to make the readers laugh, think, and explore!

What About Our Researchers?

"Like any other skills, research skills have to be nurtured and developed," says Prof. Dash, who established research education programs here at Swinburne.

What is research education? It introduces students to a range of skills and concepts essential to conducting their own research and evaluating the research of others. Such skills include literature review skills, project management skills, research presentation skills, and responding constructively to feedback.

Swinburne's research education program is designed to develop researchers' discipline specific skills as well as their capacity for collaboration and communication.

Dialogue among research institutions has been growing on research policies and best practices. In 2005, Prof. Dash co-founded the Journal of Research Practice, published by the Athabasca University Press, Canada, which introduces new knowledge about research practices.

"We wanted to start a conversation about research education with other universities in the region and that's how the idea of a conference came about."

The Borneo Research Education Conference (BREC) is now in its fourth year and has become a collaborative initiative of the research universities in Sarawak and Sabah. The fifth edition, BREC 2017, is planned to be held at Curtin University in Miri, Sarawak.

"Apart from giving researchers an extended support network, the conference also brings new research perspectives to light, which is crucial as it keeps the research community better prepared for the future."

Discover [Swinburne Sarawak research bulletin], November 2016, pp. 6-7.