Mohamed Sathak College of Arts and Science, Chennai, Head of Biotechnology Department: Mr. Dr. M.Syed Ali Interview

Mr. Dr. M.Syed Ali has been working as the Head of Biotechnology Department at Mohamed Sathak College of Arts and Science, Chennai, Tamil Nadu. He has done PhD in Marine Biotechnology from Alagappa University and areas of his research work includes Marine Pharmacology, working zebrafish model like Cancer and Neuroscience and infectious disease like Malaria and Dengue using nanoparticles. He got an international travel grant that was awarded by an organizing committee from the European Society of Infection Diseases. He has published 115 research papers in international publications and peer reviewed journals and has also authored 2 books. He has visited many countries including Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Pakistan, China and Malaysia to deliver speeches as a keynote speaker. 

What are the key factors that keep you connected with the education sector?

"My urge of educating students, improving their life and satisfaction I receive after has helped me stay connected"

Teachers have the real power to transform the lives of their students inside the classroom and the satisfaction and happiness which we receive here is totally unmatchable. Hence I believe my passion for educating students and improving their life and the satisfactory feeling I receive once they get success in their fields has helped me a lot to stay connected with the education sector. 

Being the Head of Department, what is your philosophy of leadership?

"Leadership I believe is all about empowering your team to achieve shared goals"

As a Head of the Department, I believe that true leadership is all about creating and implementing value based and innovative ideas with the support of everyone and a person who knows how to take everyone together while fixing things to achieve the shared goals will prove to be the greatest leader of all time.

In your experience, how is the Indian Education system from overseas countries' education sector?

"Both systems are totally different from each other but still have their own pros and cons"

As we all are aware that the education system in India is very different from the education system of other countries and our system is often criticized for not providing a diverse platform to students where they get an opportunity of practical learning. But in my opinion, the circumstances and difficulties of a country play an important role in establishing the foundation of a strong education system.

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How does the curriculum of your College ensure the best practices of industry?

"We organize expert sessions, interactive industry connect sessions and experiments regularly"

For the purpose of ensuring that students receive the best quality education, we have adopted a video variety of teaching-learning methodologies and hence experiments and practicals are conducted on a regular basis and field visits, expert lectures, presentations, project works and interactive lectures are organized as and when required. In addition to this, our Placement Cell ensures that students receive proper and sufficient knowledge about the latest developments and requirements of the industrial world for which industry connect sessions are conducted in collaboration with industry experts and leaders. 

How is your college more welcoming to students of different races or economic backgrounds?

"We offer scholarships and fee waivers to bright and needy students and address everyone's queries on time"

Our college is a minority based educational institution located on the outskirts of the city and surrounded by people of low income strata, hence our college offers amazing courses at an affordable fee and also provides tuition fee waiver to needy students. And scholarships are offered to students belonging from reserved categories including SC and ST and students securing 85+% in exams are given a fee concession and to ensure all these a Scholarship Cell has been established by us in college. And we never discriminate between students based on their caste, religion or background, everyone is given equal respect and learning opportunities here and to give a home like environment to students separate accommodation facilities are provided to both boys and girls. Lastly, Anti-Ragging Cells and Grievance Cells have been established to address students' queries and issues. 

What are your roles and responsibilities for the college and students?

"I am accountable to ensure students receive best education, faculties and lectures are conducted on time"

Being the Department Head, I am responsible to ensure that highly qualified and experienced faculty members are recruited from time to time andorovide best academic facilities and opportunities to my students. In addition to this, monitoring that new courses are developed and published on time, lectures are delivered by professors on scheduled time, teachers and staff members receive their salary on time and we stay compliant with the rules and standards set by the University. 

What do you think should be the college’s top priority over the next 10 years?

"We should focus on improving our educational practices and getting approvals from NAAC and UGC, CSIR and DBT"

We are working on getting permanent affiliation from NAAC, UGC 12B Status and grants from DBT, UGC, CSIR, and Institute of Environment and Forest. In addition to this, our focus area would be to achieve Autonomous status for our college and also planning to collaborate with foreign universities for student exchange programs. Last but not least, updating our college infrastructure, creating a sustainable student farm, enhancing our teaching pedagogies and making students socially responsible would be in our priority list for the next 10 years. 

When you joined Mohamed Sathak College, what was your vision for it and how far have you come in implementing them?

"My objective was to convert this college into a co-ed institution and include new programs in curriculum"

Our college initially used to educate Men and the range of courses which college was offering to students was also limited. So my vision when I joined this college was to make our college a co-ed institution, introduce new job oriented, technology based and research based programs to students, and make our college no. 1 choice among students. In addition to this, I always wanted to make our institute one of the best institutes in terms of teaching, research, placement, learning and innovation. And it gives me immense happiness to tell you that I have achieved all of my objectives here over time with the support of my colleagues and college management.

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What would you like people to know about your college that makes us different from others?

"We have provide full flexibility to student's parents with respect to fee payment"

Our institution perfectly caters to the needs of people who come from economically unstable backgrounds by providing the best quality education to their children. Also, we don't pressure parents to pay full fees for students in advance and we have made easy rules so that they can pay the complete fee in multiple installments as per their convenience. Most of our students have done their secondary level schooling from Tamil medium Government schools, hence our faculties train them how to communicate in English and make it to University ranks.