Asiya Alam - K. Sivaramakrishnan Reflection

Asiya Aslam
Louisiana State University

My association with Dr. K. Sivaramakrishnan goes back to 2013 when he offered me Singh Postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University. The fellowship gave me a strong foundation for life in academia and exposed me to high standards of research and teaching.  I clearly remember the feeling of excitement and relief when he called to inform me that I had been selected to be a Singh fellow for the academic year 2013-2014. As a doctoral student at University of Texas, Austin, I knew immediately that the Yale fellowship would be invaluable for my training as an academic and that Dr. Sivaramakrishnan had offered me the opportunity of a lifetime. It would be no exaggeration to say that without Dr. Sivaramakrishnan’s gracious offer, I would not have secured a job the following year in 2014 at Louisiana State University, where I currently teach.  

The fellowship decisively changed the questions of my research and helped me to prepare the outline for my book. I had access to the rich collection of Sterling Memorial library and the freedom to sit in classes taught in any subject at Yale. These opportunities sharpened my questions and expanded the scope of my doctoral dissertation significantly. The fellowship was also my first experience with independent teaching at a major institution.  My interaction with undergraduate students in the two South Asian history courses that I taught during the year improved my ability to handle students’ questions and enabled me to devise different techniques for classroom discussion. These skills that I picked up at Yale help me today as a teacher at my university. The interdisciplinary environment at the South Asian Studies Council, where I was based, also provided valuable focus to my research questions.  In addition to teaching, my responsibilities at the South Asian Studies Council also included working on tasks related to Modern South Asia workshop, held there annually. As one of the members of the organizing committee, reading abstracts and papers submitted for the workshop exposed me to research outside my field while I learnt to coordinate panels and themes for the conference.  

My time at Yale was enriched not just by the academic events pertaining to South Asian Studies Council but also by socialization with other students and administrators at Yale. I fondly remember my interactions and conversations with Kasturi Gupta at the MacMillan Center, which were always fun and joyful. Watching Dr. Sivaramakrishnan closely as an academic and a guide to postdoctoral fellows and his several students revealed to me an exemplary teacher even before I started my job. He offered me advice on academic conferences, job applications and even immigration matters. After I joined LSU, he wrote a letter of recommendation to assist me in my immigration application. For all this, I remain grateful and thank him sincerely. I join all his students and colleagues in congratulating him on a stellar career and wish him a fulfilling retirement and a long life.  

Sincerely,

Asiya Alam