Good day, Haritha R.. I'm Arjun. I've had a look through your background and your professional record. I'm interested in hearing more about your work and how you see yourself fitting in here with our faculty. Ready to start?

Please start by introducing your professional journey in academia.

Yeah. First of all, I'll introduce myself. I'm Haritha R I'm currently working as an assistant professor in the department of English Malaria University. I started my like my post graduation I have done from University of Hyderabad. After that, I have completed my M Phil from Center for Comparative Literature, University of Hyderabad. I hold a PhD in comparative literature from University of Hyderabad.

Mostly in the area of Cultural studies and Film and Media studies, and my areas of interest for research as well as teaching lies in Culture studies, Film and Media studies, Comparative literature and English language teaching.

And currently in my current role, I, uh, teach uh, English to B.Tech and BSc students of various branches, uh, and the courses that I have been teaching are communication skills and strategies, English for Communication and Cambridge C and advanced level English language proficiency course.

And I have two research publications which is based on my PhD research and I'm currently working on another.

Research article which I'm finalizing for a Scopus journal. South Asian popular culture and I have qualified national eligibility test for assistant professorship.

So that's briefly about my academic and research background. Thank you.

Thank you for providing that detailed summary, Professor Haritha. Let us now move forward to evaluate specific areas of your qualifications. Starting with your ability to teach theory courses, could you explain your approach to teaching a complex theoretical concept in Cultural Studies to undergraduate students, ensuring they grasp both foundational and critical perspectives?

Yes.

As considering the technical students needs of understanding cultural studies I I think I will start with the basics. What is cultural studies? So what is the importance of learning the theoretical concepts that are discussed in culture studies?

Hmm. So to start with, maybe I'll start with, uh, Raymond Williams, uh, key keywords in culture studies, which starts with culture itself, uh, then communication culture. All these are the basic popular culture. All these are basic, uh, terms that are necessary to understand and to have an overview of culture studies. Maybe I'll start with that. And then later I will move on to different critical approaches.

That are discussed in consistent studies like which which can be applied to their daily lives as well, such as feminism.

Post structuralism, post colonialism. So these to have to make them understand and also about mass culture, what is mass culture? So to make them have an understanding about these terms and what are these approaches, I will give them a.

No a basic understanding of these concepts using examples from their daily life.

And.

Thank you,

Yeah, I've been, Yeah.

Yeah, I will also may maybe include certain text like from popular culture, like films and documentaries and novels to make them understand how to review how to critically understand a text. So, so that they will develop critical thinking and analytical skills, which is basically needed for any, I mean a student from any discipline.

Thank you.

That's a thoughtful and multi-layered approach, Professor Haritha. Incorporating foundational concepts like those from Raymond Williams, followed by critical theories and practical examples from popular culture, seems like an effective method to engage students and help them develop analytical skills. Let’s now move on. For guiding student projects and research, how do you ensure students strike a balance between personal inquiry and methodological rigor? Could you elaborate on your strategy for mentoring undergraduates in this context?

Uh, what I do in my class, our, uh, I approach teaching not only as, uh, uh, as something, uh, I mean, and, uh, discussion of the concept that are in the text. It is also about especially a teacher as a teacher from humanities discipline, I consider teaching as, as also imparting values like ethics. And. Responsibility.

Yeah, sure.

And problem solving skills, critical thinking and analytical skills. So these, uh, these will, these, uh, abilities will, uh, these skills will actually take them a good professional and they can strike a balance between their personal life as well as their professional life.

Ethical practices is an important aspect that a teacher should impart to their students and I consider teaching as a two way process. So if like each class is different, so the interactions in each classroom, the responses that I get from each classroom.

So what I understand is.

Will like from that I also learn I I teach the students and I learn from them. So it's a it's a two way process.

Uh, uh yeah. That is how I see things, and the methods that I follow in class I mostly focus on.

Communication. Communicative language teaching. Kind of.

Methods and I have also incorporated task based teaching methods. These methods will make them enable in building themselves into.

A perfect professional.

Your focus on ethics, communication, and task-based teaching, alongside recognizing teaching as a two-way process, reveals a thoughtful approach to mentoring. Balancing personal growth with academic rigor is indeed crucial. Finally, let us evaluate your experience with student evaluation duties. Could you explain what strategies you use to ensure your assessments are fair, transparent, and aligned with learning objectives?

Uh, there are like in, in the institution that I work, we have continuous evaluation tests, uh, uh, continuous evaluation marks as well as assessment as well as, uh, uh, internal exam assessments. So exam will have its own pattern, its own question papers, its own criteria of evaluation. And I follow that. And for my internal evaluation, I ensure that I.

Yes.

I will be ethical in a while assessing the students outcomes when it comes to their behavior, when it comes to their classroom participation, when it comes to the their writing of assignments while evaluating their presentation. I ensure that I am I am fair and unbiased and I also. Make sure that they they have good communication.

Skills, they have critical thinking and analytical abilities. Whether they have understood the concept clearly and are they are they just understanding the it's not only about understanding the concept, but are they able to apply that in in real life context and and I also.

Assess their.

The way in which they they are able to reproduce what they have learned using examples. So these are some of the methods that our criteria that I focus on while evaluating assignments, their presentations, their classroom activities, classroom behavior.

And everything that comes as part of continuous evaluation.

Uh, in class, yes.

Thank you for sharing that, Professor Haritha. Your commitment to fairness, ethical practices, and a holistic evaluation of students’ skills and understanding reflects well on your methodical approach to teaching. With that, we have addressed key aspects of your expertise and capabilities. Is there anything additional you would like to discuss or emphasize before concluding?

Critical and analytical skills and academic writing skills.

So I I have also organized national conferences in in University of Hyderabad and I've been part of workshops. I've also been part of a research project which is headed by Professor Ashish Raja Diksha. So my experiences in my research teaching as well as the leadership.

I mean experiences in leadership or coordinating events. Makes me.

Like capable of taking this position if given.

This I I just want to let you know that.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing those additional details, Professor Haritha. Your experiences in research, teaching, academic leadership, and event coordination further emphasize your readiness for such a position. If you have nothing else to add, would you like to conclude the interview? Please confirm explicitly if you're ready to end.

Yes.