The ongoing pandemic has posed distinctive problems to individuals and sectors across the world. When it comes to higher education, these problems are particularly unique and equally pressing. How does a university continue to be an accessible and vibrant academic space without access to a campus built for facilitating such an environment? What responsibilities do academic institutions hold towards the larger public in a crisis? When answering these questions, along with several others, Ashoka successfully transitioned from conducting regular classes on campus to hosting them online. It then went a step further by establishing its virtual presence in the larger public sphere. This was done through two extremely interesting programmes established over this summer – Beyond the Classroom (BTC) and AshokaX.

Semester One of BTC saw Ashoka hosting 12 webinars that brought together stellar faculty from the University for hour-long lectures. Every Wednesday and Saturday, starting April 2020, these faculty members explored subjects such as philosophy, history, biology, and economics through live webinars. They would deconstruct a topic for 20 minutes and then answer live audience questions for another 30 minutes. This combination of a lecture and an interactive session was distinct and at the same time, important. Academics are often kept on a pedestal, too far away for a general public, outside of the campus, to access. With BTC, everyone got a little taste of what it is like to be within an Ashoka classroom. The sessions were also peppered with great anecdotes such as what led some of these professors to their interest areas. This is not something that one can access through academic publications online.

The programme got an overwhelmingly positive response. Clearly, the hunger for academic engagement is not limited to within the four walls of a campus. Still, a seemingly simple idea such as this was not bereft of some unique challenges. For example, faculty, who are usually accustomed to lecturing for

90 to 120 minutes, were not sure how to narrow down a topic to just 20 minutes. Couple this with the brief we gave them – firstly, they could not use academic jargon. Secondly, the topic would need to be accessible to an unusually wide audience. This audience ranged from a 15-year-old to an 80-year old. For long-term career academics, this was definitely their personal Everest. Yet, we saw each one of them successfully prepare and deliver outstanding lectures.

Another unique challenge for several professors was going online, as it was new to many of them. In a college classroom, they are used to steering the lecture based on reactions and questions from learners. But in a webinar format, although there may be over a thousand people listening, the speaker sees nothing but mere boxes on a screen. This is where technology played a key role. On Zoom, the platform we used, you have access to polls, quizzes, and Q&A features – all of which were used to ensure that the faculty and audience were ‘engaged’ and that there was active participation.

At the end of 12 weeks, we had about 13,000 people who had tuned into the series, and about 43,000 registrations across lectures – we knew that the programme filled a gap that had previously not been adequately addressed. Therein lay the opportunity that Ashoka still had more to do in bringing to the public some of the brightest and sharpest minds of our time.

BTC was launched in all of five days by a motley crew of four alumni, with several Ashoka administrators and senior University leadership. It proved to be a fantastic launchpad for the University’s current online offering, AshokaX, a selection of courses that allow individuals to spend 20 hours with a leading scholar of our time and deep dive into the subject of their choice. As Ashoka continues to grow in a world that’s changing faster than ever before – it continues to seek more ways in taking others along in the journey. And as participants learn from AshokaX, we will too – just like we did from BTC.

Tanita Abraham worked on establishing Ashoka’s Beyond the Classroom series and is currently working on AshokaX. She graduated from the Young India Fellowship in 2014 and worked with the University from 2014-2019.