News Magazine -2009 - Chemical Engineering Department - IISc

An account of the Alumni Meet held on May10, 2009The institute was founded on May 27, 1909 with the extraordinaryvision of J. N. Tata. To commemorate one hundred years of existenceof the institute, a large number of workshops and symposia have beenorganized in the institute at the department and the divisionlevels. The institute organized IISc Centenary Conference (13-16thDecember, 2008), one of its kind, to showcase the institute. Thiswas attended by a large number of alumni from India and abroad.Our department organized a workshop-cum-symposium on `MolecularSimulations: Applications in Engineering Sciences' during May 6-9,2009. This was followed on May 10 by one day long Alumni Meet. Thismeet, perhaps the first of its kind, was attended by a large numberof our alumni, many of whom came from far off places all over thecountry with their own arrangements. Somebody drove in a car fromChennai, someone else took bus both ways from Hyderabad in the monthof May, another one stayed in a hotel in Majestic to attend theMeet, and so on. There are many other unrecognized efforts of thiskind which made this Alumni Meet a great experience. The departmentsalutes this spirit among its alumni and it proud of them!This write up is intended to provide you a brief account of theAlumni Meet.The planning for the Alumni Meet began quite early. Considering thatthis was perhaps the first occasion to ask the alumni formally fortheir feedback on how we had trained them, the Alumni Meet focusedon just two issues---Student Learning and Alumni-DepartmentInteraction.The Alumni Meet opened with the get-together dinner on May 9th onthe department terrace. Prof. Ganapathy Ayappa's menu and theexotic setting provided by the caterer were the main topics ofconversation during the dinner. A number of people felt that thedinner was among the best ever organized in the department. TheMeet opened formally the next day (Sunday) morning in Faculty Hall20