B’luru’s private universities open door wider for foreign faculty

B’luru’s private universities open door wider for foreign faculty

SruthySusan.Ullas@timesofindia.com 22.11.2024 

Bengaluru : Private universities in the city are on a recruitment spree for foreign faculty. In their attempt at internationalisation, many are hiring people from other countries, mostly as guest faculty, even while they aspire for full-time recruitment. Alliance University, which currently has two fulltime international faculty members and 42 visiting ones a year, plans to recruit 20 such faculty members in the near future. 

The initiative is to “enhance academic excellence and foster a globally diverse learning environment”, the university said. “Job postings have been published on platforms such as LinkedIn and UniJobs to reach a wide and relevant audience,” said Jyothsna Pais, deputy director (HR), Alliance University. Dayananda Sagar University doesn’t have full-time faculty but currently invites foreign professors for a shorter period of 15-30 days. The university, which currently has around 15 such faculty members a year, also plans to start recruiting them full time. Presidency University, which has regularly hosted 20 international visiting faculty members so far, is looking at making full-time recruitments for the coming academic year. While recruitments are smooth, thanks to international collaborations and a dedicated Office of International Affairs, visa processing and administrative formalities can sometimes pose challenges that require careful navigation, said Sivaperumal S, dean (academics) and director of International Affairs, Presidency University. 

“We call them for a shor ter period because bringing foreign faculty from developed nations for a longer period is much more expensive. We, on the other hand, are charging a mid-range fee (on students). Even while we intend to recruit full time, compensation is a challenge. There are those who are ready to come to India for a lower salary, as everyone sees India as one big opportunity. But then, you have to know them personally to recruit them,” said a private university recruiter. Service mindset  Established universities have full-time faculty members. Christ (deemed to be) University has 13 full-time faculty members from the US, Australia, Russia, South Korea, Italy, among others, teaching Western classical music, the atre, Korean language, and international studies. “We hardly find candidates with a PhD in Western classical music in India. Similarly, many major schools of theatre are from Russia and the US,” said registrar Anil Pinto. 

“They come with a service mindset. They have a sense of giving back. Many of them come through personal networks or walkins. They look for a sense of security and clarity on the kind of institution they belong to.” Some of the universities take the help of consultants to hire faculty from abroad. “The association of foreign nationals with private universities is mainly in the form of guest faculty. Hiring foreign faculty as regular staff is still a distant reality, although with growing collaborations, many private universities have started paying attention to it. That said, many private universities are intensifying efforts to hire faculty from Europe, the UK, and the US. We’ve been approached by a few Bengaluru-based universities to hire foreign faculty from Europe, Latin America, and Australia. The requirements are specifically in the emerging areas of AI, ML, and management,” said Kalpesh Banker, managing partner, EduShine Search Partners, a recruitment firm specialising in the higher education sector.