Brief Profile-Dr Prakash Pinto

Prakash Pinto is currently  Professor and Dean in the Department of Business Administration at St Joseph Engineering College, an autonomous institution under Visvesvaraya Technological University (VTU) in Karnataka, India. Prior to his appointment at the St Joseph Engineering College, he served as a faculty in School  of Business, Gulf College, Sultanate of Oman. He also served as Assistant Professor at Aloysius Institute of Business Administration (Now called AIMIT) and PA College of Engineering Mangalore. He has 26 years of teaching at the postgraduate level and 21 years of research experience. Dr Prakash Pinto received his Master of Commerce (M.Com)  and PhD in Commerce from Mangalore University. He also holds MBA degree in Finance and M.A degree  in Philosophy, Post Graduate Diploma in Management (PGDIM) Post Graduate Diploma in Financial Management (PGDIM)  from Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), New Delhi, India. He was the recipient of Junior Research Fellowship of UGC for pursuing PhD.

Dr Prakash Pinto published 25 papers in Scopus indexed Journals and presented various academic as well as research-based papers at national and international conferences. He is a recognised Doctoral research supervisor in Management at Visvesvaraya Technological University and successfully guided five candidates for the PhD from Visvesvaraya Technological University Belagavi Karnataka  and one candidate has been successfully guided for PhD in Management studies of Dravidian University,Kuppam,Andhra Pradesh.

He served as the chairman of Board of Examiners (BOE) of VTU and has been the member of VTU BOE six times. He was also the member of the VTU BOS for one time. Apart from this he has served as the member of BOS of JSS Science and Technology University Mysuru and other autonomous colleges.He is the member of the Board of Appointment of VIT-AP University, Amaravati,Andhra Pradesh. His research activities are in the field of Capital Markets, Personal finance, Entrepreneurship, Modern retail, Accounting theory and Medical Tourism.

Statement of Teaching Philosophy

I chose teaching profession by choice and not by accident. After completing my post graduation from Mangalore University, I started my career as a Commerce Teacher. After my doctoral studies in finance , I took up teaching in Management Studies. As a teacher of Management Studies, I believe that I am expected to completely understand the system of learning, understand how I fit into the system as a whole and how I should contribute to develop ideas for improvement of the business processes. This is a tall order. I further  understand that teaching is not a profession where one becomes an expert overnight. Knowledge and skills can be continually updated and improved making myself more effective and valuable to the organization which I serve. I enjoy learning new things and have a natural curiosity. I always see a big picture while being detail oriented. I confess that it took many years for me to feel like a teacher. I am still not sure I am there yet. I would look over my feedback sheets to decide what I was going to teach. I  do  additional research to see if I missed any features that I would want to include.

When it comes to my students I look for students who don’t simply do what they are told but ask ‘why’. As a professional I am committed to providing my students with training that enhance learning experience and give them an opportunity to apply what they have learned, I am fully aware that my job is to produce professionals for business who can clearly communicate and who can think logically.

I believe that curiosity should dominate every teacher’s mind. It is curiosity that accounts for the progress of mankind. I recall here what was written by Einstein: ‘ I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious”. Steve Jobs said: ‘ Out of curiosity comes everything’. Curiosity comes alive when we feel a gap between what we know and what we want to know. I also think curiosity plays a key role in keeping students’ minds always engaged. Overtime, such constant engagement results in broadening the perspective and sharpening of the intellect. Curiosity can help provide clarity and insight in several situations that can lead to a novel action. As an  enthusiastic business teacher, I am passionate about my vocation. I enjoy engaging and motivating future industry leaders to develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of  management concepts.