In the first colloquium of this trimester, Dr. Martin D. Schoenhals, a cultural anthropology Professor at Columbia University, guided ASB Coimbatore students on approaching Live-in-Labs (LILA), the flagship theory-into-practice program of the college. He began the talk by shedding light into his observances of the education provided at Amrita. “As a Professor, I like Amrita’s model of education. Here, students are asked to experience and learn, a great effective model of delivering education,” Dr. Schoenhals said.

With his specialization in contemporary Chinese culture and his research experiences in India, Dr. Schoenhals brought out several interesting insights on rural management. By presenting the factors of cultural hurdles to the social systems existing in the country, he exemplified the denial of rural management and pointed out how educational projects like LILA can resolve the issues to a great extent.

The students, who recently completed their visits to 13 villages across India, shared their investigations and perceptions on rural management to Dr. Schoenhals. In the session, students vowed their commitment to sell the hand-made products from villages, a solution proposed to solve the problem of marketing village goods.

The session that happened on 6^th October 2015 at Sri Krishna Hall in the campus witnessed a participation of 129 students from first year MBA program along with faculty members.