by Fr. Mario Vaz
KURLA-MUMBAI, MARCH 13, 2015: The House Council, Principals and some departmental heads of the Don Bosco Centre for Learning Institutions of Kurla met to deliberate the drawing up of the Academi
c Plan for the year 2015- 2016 on March 3, 2015.
After the opening prayer by the Rector, Fr. Adolph Furtado enumerated what he wished to see as part of the Academic plan; a calendar of events to be drawn up, compliance of staff and infrastructure requirements, an admission process in place and a handbook for students that would detail how we conduct the course. If any of the institutions would be opting for Accreditation then it would need to be shown how they would be going about it. It was suggested that some events organized on campus could be kept open for participation by students across institutions of the campus.
It was also suggested that institutions need to work within the budget. By the end of May all staff would require to attend sessions on the "Don Bosco Way"- which is the Preventive System - and Conversational English. Recognizing the strong synergy that exists among the various institutes on campus and the collaborative action between them, it was necessary to have a common identity from which emerges the Vision and Mission of DBCL.
This would enable the Salesians to discern future plans and define the DBCL Campus Culture. Fr. Cyril D'Souza, the Campus Minister at DBCL in his presentation "Defining the DBCL Campus Culture" stated the Mission and Vision of DBCL which over the years has already become a reality on this campus. "We call ourselves a Centre for Learning because our style of functioning is expressed in transmitting knowledge and skills specific to students' specialization, yet concentrating on empowering them to become "good human beings and honest citizens". In essence this would be our end product." Fr. Cyril then elaborated on what the Ideal Profile of a DBCL student could be.
A screening tool to scan the salient aspects of DBCL students was then demonstrated. The purpose is to find out what DBCL students generally experience on external fronts; the major factors that bear on the life of a DBCL student; how the teaching faculty and management can improve facilities for a better student life and help to draw up a checklist of items to be addressed.
Professor Shiv Negi and Professor Guna Shekar then demonstrated other software developed by Don Bosco Institute of Technology and currently in use at the institute. It was recommended that 
all institutions on campus use this software to facilitate teaching learning processes as well as administration. The softwares made available to the institutions were: online feedback of faculty by students, computerized student attendance, performance details of tests, response to daily questions, with possibility of reporting to parents directly.
Employee Timesheet with an activity log of time spent by faculty daily; Performance Appraisal system of all Staff with individual reports; Peer feedback for students on six parameters and software to take care of all calculations and generate reports at the time of assessment. An E-Service book, accepted by the University is also available.
The participants lauded the efforts of the IT and Computer team that had designed the software in accordance with needs of DBCL institutions. They also welcomed the idea of developing a Campus Culture for DBCL and resolved that they would co-operate along with their staff to make it a reality.