Almost a year before her term ends, IIM Calcutta director, Anju Seth, has tendered her resignation from the post.
The board has received Professor Seth’s resignation and will meet sometime this week to deliberate on the next steps, said a member of the IIM Calcutta board.
Seth’s resignation comes almost a month after the board of governors clipped her powers to make appointments and take disciplinary action. Seth’s term was to end in February 2022.
The board and Seth have been on a path of confrontation for some months now. According to media reports, Seth had accused chairperson, Shrikrishna G Kulkarni of infringing on her executive powers and the board, in turn, was understood to have accused her of improper conduct. The confrontation had led to an early search for her successor.
While the confrontation with the board is in focus right now, a conflict with the faculty surfaced much earlier. “In the first 6-7 months, we had flagged issues with the board about director Seth’s style and approach. The board gave us a formal hearing in December 2019,” said a senior professor of the institute.
The issues were raised by the IIM Faculty Association that represents about 75 per cent of the faculty.
Among the major issues raised were faculty recruitment. “This an old institute, in the last two years, faculty members had retired and there were some resignations. But positions were not being filled,” the professor said, adding that there was an overall trust deficit between the faculty and the director.
As per the IIM Act, there are pillars – the board of governors, the director and the academic council.
“An institution will run well if all the three pillars work together, which is the intention of act also,” the professor said.
Seth, the first woman director of IIM Calcutta, took charge in November 2018. An alumnus of IIM Calcutta, prior to slipping into the role of director, Seth held the position of Pamplin Professor of Management at Virginia Tech, USA and before that was professor of business administration at University of Illinois.
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