The School of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Heritage (PPSH) at Chinmaya Vishwavidyapeeth (CVV) Deemed to be University, organised a one-day online National Students Seminar on the broad theme Bridging Frontiers to Promote Adaptability in a Changing World. The seminar was held on 18 December 2021. This was the first time that CVV organised a seminar exclusively for students. It was an excellent opportunity for young students to get started on their research careers and for senior students to present their research work to their peers and experts to get timely feedback.
The seminar was inaugurated by Prof. Ajay Kapoor (Vice Chancellor, CVV). Prof. George Mathews (former Head, Department of Psychology, University of Kerala) was invited to deliver the keynote address. However, due to unexpected technical issues, the session could not proceed as planned. Nevertheless, the seminar proceedings received a boost with the next session in which Dr. Fantahun Admas (Associate Professor and Head of the Centre for Early Childhood Care and Education, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia) delivered an extremely informative lecture on Research Process: Fundamental Issues to be Mindful of. Dr. Admas’ talk took the students through various steps of research and highlighted the key elements in each of the steps. The lecture is bound to leave a lasting mark on the participants, almost all of whom were undergraduate students or budding researchers.
After the inaugural session, the seminar proceeded to the student paper presentations. A total of 11 papers were presented over two serial sessions. Among these, eight papers were by students of CVV and three by students from other universities and colleges. Among them, two papers were selected for the best paper award. These were The Lived Experience of Victims through Domestic Violence in Kerala, authored by Nowfel Yousef (PhD student, CVV) and Learning During the Covid -19: Lived Experiences of parents having children with autism and parents having normal children, authored by Lakshmi Peringhat Sailan, Ananya Shankar A. (2nd year UG students, Jain [Deemed-to-be] University, Kochi) and Deepa K. Damodaran (Asst. Prof, Jain [Deemed-to-be] University, Kochi). The authors will be receiving a certificate and cash prize as a recognition of their effort. The prizes were announced by Dr. Satheesh Varma (Head of the School of PPSH), who congratulated the awardees and encouraged others to continue participating in such academic events to hone their research and publication skills. The papers were judged based on conceptual clarity, methodology, implications/prospects of the study and their presentation skills.
Each session was chaired by a panel of two expert faculty. While Dr. A. Radhika (Asst. Professor, Gargi College, University of Delhi) and Dr. Sharon P. Thomas (Assistant Professor, Jain [Deemed-to-be] University, Kochi) served as external experts, Dr. Kavita R. Shanmughan and Dr. Meenu Rose Paul (both Assistant Professors from the School of PPSH) served as internal members of the panel.
The seminar attracted a total of 89 participants (apart from the presenters) and was well attended.
