Faculty Development Programme on 'Conscious Facilitation'

Faculty Development Programme (FDP) at DSBA is aimed at honing and enhancing the skill set of the teachers in the contemporary and emerging areas of management and to expose participants to recent developments in teaching and research methods.

In view of the above one-day FDP on ‘Conscious Facilitation’ was conducted in Room 401 from 9:30 am to 4:30 pm on 24th Nov 2017. The facilitator was Ms Archana Krishnamurthy. It was attended by Dr [Brig] Sandes, Principal-DSBA; Dr Veena K N, Dean-DSBA; Prof Nikitha Sreekantha, HOD-DSBA; 19 faculty members & 4 Administrative Staff Members. Prof Nikitha welcomed Ms Archana, the facilitator to DSBA and introduced her to the participants.

Ms.Archana is the co-founder of Conscious Living Center (CLC), a Motivational Speaker and a Certified Leadership Coach from Franklin Covey and Neuro Leadership Group. She is a sought after advisor by Governments, Chambers of Commerce and Industries, NGO's and Corporate Houses, has mentored and coached many start-up entrepreneurs and corporate leaders. She is frequently invited as a motivational speaker by educational institutions, start-up forums, corporate houses, women forums and NGO's. Ms.Archana has over 20 years of professional experience and is a student of spirituality since last 12 years. She is passionate about transforming lives and making a positive difference to the world around her.

The FDP was divided into three interactive sessions. What made the FDP different from the other mundane FDP’s was the fact that she did not explain but raised questions on the FDP content to the audience .Thus ,all the sessions were merely discussed and she did the role of a motivating facilitator. Amazingly, the participants responded beautifully to all the questions asked!

In the first session she delved on consciousness, spirituality and why should one become conscious. A video was shown that was centered on the discussion. A questionnaire and workshop takeaways on the session were filled in by the participants.

The second session resumed after a coffee break. The topic of education was discussed. Ms Archana differentiated the terms teaching and facilitation and spoke on how one should prepare oneself to facilitate/assist the new millennial students. She advised faculty to bring a change in the teaching methodology by donning on creative thinking caps, have a belief in drawing out latent potential in the students, have clarity, equip oneself to becoming more effective in teaching and have an insight into the professional requirement. She ended the session by showing a relevant video and the participants filled in a questionnaire and a form of workshop takeaways.

This was followed by a sumptuous lunch break. The third session was on conscious facilitation. Here, she emphasized on teachers being the greatest influencers in student’s lives. She stated that it is imperative that faculty have clarity of purpose, intention and objective, display right behaviour & be conscious of being a leader in oneself to lead the others. Faculty present also shared some of their life experiences and sought answers for some of the problems they had encountered. A final questionnaire and feedback on the session was filled in by all.

Dr [Brig] Sandes and Dr Veena K N shared their insights and highly appreciated Ms Archana for the excellent FDP and gave rave reviews. The workshop got good feedback and was cherished by the faculty participants.

A vote of thanks was proposed by Prof Meera Krishnan. Certificate of Participation was distributed by the facilitator, Ms Archana.

Ms Archana then handed candles to all .Once the candles were lit by all the participants, they made a pledge of consciousness.

The FDP ended with a group photograph.