City varsity ropes in foreign guest faculty

Bhubaneswar: The Odisha University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) has invited guest faculty from foreign universities to teach its students and help researchers in subjects where it does not have expertise.
“One professor from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA, has already started teaching students agriculture. Two others have reached the university and they will start teaching veterinary sciences from Monday,” said OUAT vice-chancellor Pravat Kumar Roul. “Next month, two foreign faculty members will take classes. One is from University of Georgia, USA, and another from the Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok,” he added.
Rama Chandra Dash, a professor of OUAT and foreign programme coordinator, said they are in the process of roping in more foreign faculty members. “These teachers and researchers will stay here for a month. The guest faculty members will also interact with our teachers to discuss teaching and learning methods,” he added.
He said it was not a faculty exchange programme.
“We have invited them to teach our students and help our scholars. We will pay them remuneration and other expenses. We are not strong in some areas, but these teachers will help our students and scholars in those fields. Students will get exposure to international-level teaching and learning methods through this programme,” said Dash.
He said they have chosen teachers who have expertise in genomics, breeding, remote sensing, GIS, machine learning, automation, artificial intelligence and other latest techniques of teaching and research works.