Openings – Center for Thinking, Language and Communication – Plaksha University

Plaksha’s journey started in 2015, as a conversation among a few friends about how and why technology education needs to change. This group of people, most of them entrepreneurs and business leaders, were keen to change the landscape of engineering and technology education in India and the world. Reimagining Higher Education Foundation, a Section 8 not-for-profit company, was set up in 2017 with a mission of converting the idea into a plan. In Feb 2019, the groundbreaking of Plaksha University’s campus in Mohali took place with the aim of opening the campus in Aug 2021.

At CTLC, we believe that the key to breakthrough value creation and innovation lies in developing a deep understanding and mastery of Thinking, Language, and Communication. We engage in cutting-edge research and education at the intersection of technology and these three fundamental pillars. In a world where the boundaries between human and machine blur, this quest has never been more vital. As part of Plaksha University’s visionary mission to create a world-class institution dedicated to advancing science and technology for the betterment of humanity, CTLC is at the forefront of groundbreaking research that challenges what we know and pushes beyond the boundaries of possibility.

1. CTLC Education Experiences Lead

Within its first year, CTLC has delivered courses for Undergraduates, post-graduates and pHD scholars at Plaksha University. The vertical within CTLC that focuses on this is called stemX. Over the next few years, CTLC will dramatically expand its course offerings within Plaksha and beyond. As the Education Experiences Lead, you will be responsible for leading the development of all educational programs and will report directly to the CTLC Director.

This role is an integral part of our mission to empower technologists with the tools they need to succeed in their personal and professional lives. You will play a pivotal role in shaping the direction of our pedagogy and course content to ensure maximum impact.

Your main responsibilities will include designing and delivering workshops and training sessions for educators and students, conducting assessments and evaluations of program effectiveness, and leading a team of instructional designers and trainers. You will collaborate closely with stakeholders across the organization, including our research team, curriculum developers, teaching fellows and other subject matter experts, to ensure that all content and materials are aligned with best practices and meet the needs of learners at all levels.

To succeed in this role, you should have a curiosity for science and technology, passion for education, interest to engage in philosophy, excellent project management skills, and experience as an adult educator. Given the critical nature of the role, this role involves a minimum commitment of three years.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Design curriculum for courses at the intersections of technology-communication, technology-humanities. Develop innovative teaching strategies that support student success.
• End-to-end course delivery from curriculum to classroom sessions to assignments and assessments.
• Build and lead a team of young professionals to assist in stemX.
• Expand course offerings to include electives, a minor concentration and a major that can be offered by CTLC.
• Build and train a pool of tutors who can be offered contractual work to support with course tutorials and assessments.
• Build a community of guest lecturers and visiting faculty who can add value to CTLC’s course offerings.
• Experiment with adapting courses for online formats and/or as corporate workshops.
• Keep up-to-date with higher education trends in pedagogy, ed-tech and communication technology to identify new opportunities for developing breakthrough pedagogy and course content.
• Ensure that courses run smoothly are serving the needs of industry and academia.
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders including faculty, industry experts, and students.

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Deep understanding of pedagogy and curriculum development.
• Experience as an educator with adult students either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level and possess a flair and passion to teach.
• Ph.D qualification is an added advantage.
• Excellent communication skills to collaborate effectively with other departments, partners and stakeholders.
• Ability to synthesize complex research into practical applications will be critical in guiding our educational approach.
• Highly organized and can manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong leadership skills and be capable of motivating and inspiring a high-performing team.
• Strong interpersonal and relationships building skills.

Recruitment Process:
If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)

2.Publishing Lead, CTLC

Within its first year, CTLC has produced both academic and popular outputs. The vertical within CTLC that focuses on this is called TextUs. Over the next few years, CTLC will dramatically expand its output. As a publishing catalyst you will be responsible for TextUs and will report directly to the CTLC Director. You will play a pivotal role in shaping the direction of our publishing output and developing strategies to ensure maximum impact.

You will collaborate closely with researchers, editors and designers, harnessing their expertise to craft compelling narratives and formats that help share cutting edge research and literature with various communities. Your responsibilities will include conceptualizing and managing projects from ideation to publication, overseeing production workflows and ensuring quality control, and building relationships with key stakeholders in the academic and popular publishing industry.

To succeed in this role, you should have a curiosity for science and technology, passion for storytelling, an eye for detail, excellent project management skills, and experience in the academic and/or popular publishing industries. Given the critical nature of the role, this role involves a minimum commitment of three years.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Identifying and developing new potential publishing projects.
• Work closely with authors (researchers and students) to develop their manuscripts with care and precision, providing feedback and guidance throughout the editorial process.
• Expand publishing scope to include more mediums like podcasts, videos, infographics etc.
• Conceptualize and organize publishing related events like conferences, writers retreats, book launches, Literary festivals, Witeathon, etc.
• Activate and manage CTLC Labs. A space which is a combined communications research space and publishing studio.
• Build a community of students and researchers at Plaksha who collaborate with CTLC.
• Build and manage a pool of freelance resources/ contractual workers to assist in production.
• Keep up-to-date with industry trends, changes in market demand and identify new opportunities for growth in digital and print media.
• Ensure that deadlines are met and budgets are adhered to.
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders including authors, agents and publishers.
• Love for literature, writing and creating Literary and multimodal monuments.

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Experience with the entire pipeline of publishing from pre-production to production and post-production.
• Excellent communication, both written and verbal.
• Highly organized and can manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Experience with leading teams and project management.
• Strong interpersonal and relationships building skills.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and familiar with Adobe Creative Suite.
• Knowledge of online publishing platforms and digital content creation.

Recruitment Process:
If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)

3. stemX Fellow, CTLC

Within its first year, CTLC has delivered courses for Undergraduates, post-graduates and pHD scholars at Plaksha University. The vertical within CTLC that focuses on this is called stemX. Over the next few years, CTLC will dramatically expand its course offerings within Plaksha and beyond. As a stemX fellow, you will be working on multiple educational programs offered by CTLC and will report to the Education Experiences Lead. You will be involved in the various stages of course development right from curriculum design to instructional design and assessments.

Your main responsibilities will include research for course content and pedagogy, instructional design tailored to course content, course logistics, facilitating workshops and tutorial sessions, and managing assessments and evaluations. You will collaborate closely with stakeholders across the organization, including our research team, students, subject matter experts and tutors to ensure that all content and materials are aligned with best practices and meet the needs of learners at all levels. To succeed in this role, you should have a curiosity for science and technology, passion for education, excellent project management skills, and experience as an adult educator.

This is a fixed term role of 1yr extendable by another 1yr. It is ideal for someone looking to gain the right holistic experience before applying for a pHD or building a career as a university administrator. A total of 3 stemX fellows will be hired for the academic year 2023-24.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Research to support curriculum development for existing and upcoming courses.
• Documentation and knowledge management of all courses for all stages from curriculum to classroom sessions to assignments and assessments.
• Coordinating and managing a pool of tutors.
• Building a community of guest lecturers and visiting faculty who can add value to CTLC’s course offerings.
• Ensure that courses run smoothly are serving the needs of industry and academia.
• Build and maintain relationships with key stakeholders including faculty, industry experts, and students.
• Fulfilling all the LMS responsibilities and requirements of the university
• Classroom management

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Ability to do academic research on any course related theme
• Experience with pedagogy and curriculum development.
• Experience as an educator with adult students either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level.
• Experience and skill in conducting one-one and group tutorials.
• Passionate about the intellectual life and teaching
• Create state of the art lesson plans and teaching session PPT presentations that fulfills all of the learning objectives and outcomes
• Excellent communication skills to collaborate effectively with other departments, partners and stakeholders.
• Ability to synthesize complex research into key relevant insights.
• Highly organized and can manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Strong interpersonal and relationships building skills.

Recruitment Process:
If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)

4. textUs Fellow, CTLC

Within its first year, CTLC has produced both academic and popular outputs. The vertical within CTLC that focuses on this is called TextUs. Over the next few years, CTLC will dramatically expand its output. As a stemX fellow, you will be responsible for various publishing outputs and will report to CTLC Publishing Lead. You will be involved in various stages of publication from ideation and pre-production to post-production and marketing.

Your responsibilities will include scoping and managing projects from ideation to publication, implementing production workflows, ensuring quality control, and building relationships with key stakeholders in the academic and popular publishing industry. To succeed in this role, you should have a curiosity for science and technology, passion for storytelling, an eye for detail, excellent project management skills, and some experience in
publishing.

This is a fixed term role of 1yr extendable by another 1yr. It is ideal for someone looking to gain the right holistic experience before applying for a pHD or building a career as an engineering communications specialist. A total of 3 stemX fellows will be hired for the academic year 2023-24.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Identifying and developing new potential publishing projects.
• Work closely with authors (researchers and students) to develop their manuscripts with care and precision, providing feedback and guidance throughout the editorial process.
• Liaison with external publications and publication houses to secure opportunity for publishing
• Assist in organizing and conducting workshops on reading, writing and publishing for students, staffs, and faculty
• Organize communication related events in the university, like writeathon, literary festival, and author speak, etc.
• Design and conduct courses on creative writing
• Develop a love for literature and a culture of writing in the community

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Experience in one or more stages of publishing from pre-production to production and post-production.
• Excellent communication, both written and verbal.
• Highly organized and can manage multiple projects simultaneously.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and familiar with Adobe Creative Suite.
• Knowledge of online publishing platforms and digital content creation.
• Experience in writing and publishing at various levels.
• Proofreading and editorial skills.
• Skill and experience in digital and multimodal communication is an added bonus.
• Well read with the ability to interpret text and voice is important
• Skills of content writing, design and social media is desirable

Recruitment Process
If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)

5. CTLC Tutor

Within its first year, CTLC has delivered courses for Undergraduates, post-graduates and pHD scholars at Plaksha University. The vertical within CTLC that focuses on this is called stemX. The courses cover domains spanning communication, philosophy and humanities.

CTLC’s innovative pedagogy involves a combination of lectures, experiential activities and tutorials to support student learning. As a Tutor, you will work with faculty to deliver multiple courses.

Your main responsibilities will include holding tutorial discussions with students, conducting assessments and course administration. You will collaborate closely with faculty and our research team to ensure that student learning is aligned with pedagogy and curriculum goals. To succeed in this role, you should have a passion for education, interest to engage in philosophy, curiosity about science and technology, and experience as an
adult educator.

CTLC is building a pool of tutors who will be groomed and trained to support various courses. Once selected, you will receive training in pedagogy, classroom management and CTLC assessments methodology. From our pool, we will contract tutors on a course by course basis based on availability and tutor background. The role is ideal for post-graduate and doctoral students looking to take-on 4-8 hours per week of additional teaching work.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Facilitate tutorial discussions based on course content and faculty requirements.
• Assist in assessing assignments and grading.
• Perceive gaps in student learning and share them as feedback to faculty.
• To be able to hold meaningful and efficient one-one and group tutorials and fulfilling the objectives of the tutorial
• To identify weak students and provide them with personalized care.

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Experience as an educator with adult students either at the undergraduate or postgraduate level.
• Ability to synthesize and simplify complex research and develop appropriate tutorial prompts.
• Ability to perceive gaps in student learning.
• Background in technology/ communication/ philosophy.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Experience in tutoring students either individual or groups.

Recruitment Process:
If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)

6. Administrator, CTLC

Within the first year, CTLC has successfully developed three verticals: stemX- The teaching wing, Textus- the writing and publishing wing and, TECN- The networking wing. The stemX vertical design curriculum and pedagogy and delivers courses on Thinking Language and Communication for these three groups of people undergraduates, post-graduates, and Ph.D. scholars.

The TextUS vertical focuses on training and mentoring the Plaksha community to write and publish books as well as articles in popular media.

TECN is the network of technology and engineering communication that CTLC is forming by partnering with both National and international engineering departments and colleges.

We are also in the process of setting up CTLC Labs and studio.

As the CTLC Administrator, you will support the director’s office for the smooth functioning of all the above stated verticals. You will be responsible for coordinating the work of the team, scheduling appointments, maintaining records, storage of all digital resources, planning and overseeing workflow processes.

While, being part of the director’s office you get the opportunity to see the larger picture of the center and its role in the university and beyond, your skills of attention to detail, meticulous planning and organizing as well as the uncanny gift of coordinating with the diverse number of people to ensure outcomes and outputs are delivered.

Key Objectives and Responsibilities:

• Assist the director in research and publishing pursuits.
• Manage the directors commitments, communications and relationships.
• Establish and implement processes to help in smooth functioning of the center’s various activities.
• Work closely with the CTLC team members.

Desired Skills and Experience:

• Attention to details
• Strong organizational and time-management skills
• Excellent Communication skills both spoken and written.
• Coordination and communication between various stakeholders
• Proficiency with MS office, excel, word. etc
• Scheduling and reporting of meetings
• Managing workflow processes
• Troubleshooting and problem solving
• Budget and Finance: Monitoring budgets, ensuring the center or any activities operate within the budget.
• Liaison between CTLC and various departments within the universities.

Recruitment Process:

If you are interested in this position, write to ctlc@plaksha.edu.in with a statement of why you want this position and your updated CV (Must include contact details)