Academic integrity is ensuring that the work you turn in is your own. The trust this builds is critical to teamwork, leadership and collaborative learning. However academic dishonesty is still an issue plaguing academic institutions in India. The most common excuse (other than claiming lack of awareness) is the justification that the act is a one time event due to extraordinary circumstances. How do we create an environment within our institutions wherein even a case of minor dishonesty is perceived as a grave offense? How can we encourage the student community to be conscient regarding passing off others’ work as their own? What can student leaders do to make the community realize the importance of academic integrity and adhere to it as second nature? How do we encourage students to report any instances of academic dishonesty?

• Violations of academic integrity stem largely from poor self-confidence in students, fear of failure and lack of interest in specific subjects.
• Various IITs mandate different punishments, varying as per degrees of offence in most cases. Some of them are as follows:
       - Reduction in grade points
       - Fail grade in course
       - Suspension for a semester or a year
       - Probation, which includes disqualification from contesting elections and holding positions of responsibility
• Some implementable recommendations that student representatives broadly agreed upon are:
       - Spreading awareness about Intellectual Property Rights.
       - Including a mandatory communication skills course to highlight plagiarism within the curriculum.
       - Improving faculty-student interactions to bring both of them to a common ground where they can freely discuss and debate about issues of academic integrity.
       - Enforcing plagiarism checks in projects and theses.
       - Promoting strong punishments to act as deterrents.
       - Punishing every guilty student in proportion to the severity of their violation.
       - Bringing student representatives and administration together to decide on these punishments collectively on a case to case basis.
       - Effectively handling issues related to academic integrity in courses on the faculty side (such as originality of course content and proper academic practices - such as citations - in their course material)
       - Encouraging professors to set realistic timelines for assignments and projects to deter malpractices.
       - Encouraging professors to prepare different question paper sets for examinations and new question papers every year.
• The system of branch/department change is paradoxical; students need to work extremely hard on all courses irrespective of their branch or interest to get what they want. To survive the immense competition for branch change, students may feel that academic dishonesty in courses which they aren’t interested in is acceptable in order to get into a branch they’re actually interested in. Discouraging academic dishonesty early into college life requires a wholesome rethinking of the branch allotment and branch change policy.

Research is an activity that involves exploring and proposing new knowledge, facts, methods, conclusions or discoveries, or implementing existing knowledge to solve new problems. Students entering their first year in an IIT are habituated to rote learning. Exposure to research at an undergraduate level helps students acquire skills such as critical thinking, an independent approach to problem-solving, and perseverance. Moreover, at an undergraduate level, students can freely explore cutting-edge topics related to their diverse areas of interest, which they might not have the opportunity to do later. Most undergraduate students feel research projects are only beneficial for those who want to pursue graduate studies. There is a need to change this perception. We would like to explore ways to promote research at an undergraduate level. How can we make our respective student communities and faculty members aware of the importance of undergraduate research?

• In the experience of student leaders, the following issues have resulted in limited exposure to research among undergraduate students:
       - Professors usually give undergraduate students undemanding projects or reading projects due to their relatively inadequate knowledge.
       - In most cases, doing a project and building a skill-set for placements are incorrectly viewed as mutually exclusive pursuits.
       - Students deter their juniors from taking up projects because of the misconception that those who do projects pursue only graduate studies.
       - Students usually prefer positions of responsibility over research projects because of the perception that most companies prefer the former.
• To increase the visibility of undergraduate research, student-run media bodies can publicise student projects.
• Student leadership can recommend the inclusion of project components in courses to expose students to research.
• Competitions and awards can incentivise and publicise student projects.
• Setting up an undergraduate research portal where professors may float projects can increase awareness about possible research opportunities among students.
• Graduate students can conduct workshops to introduce tools to undergraduates.
• Product-oriented research could lead to start-up ideas.
• Undergraduates may ask faculty for more challenging projects; at the same time, faculty may be encouraged to offer more challenging projects to undergraduates.
• Some initiatives that have worked in different IITs:
       - Students Undergraduate Research and Graduate Excellence (SURGE) program, IIT Kanpur
       - Summer Research Internship Program (SRIP) and Undergraduate Research Conclave (UGRC), IIT Gandhinagar
       - Summer Undergraduate Research Award (SURA), IIT Delhi
       - Center for Innovation (CFI), IIT Madras
       - Innovation Cell, IIT Bombay
       - Research Conclave, IIT Guwahati

Emotional, psychological, and social well-being of all students is extremely important for their health, academic progress, and holistic growth. Students who face issues related to their well-being have the opportunity to avail on-campus counselling services to help them deal with and overcome these problems. However, due to various reasons such as the fear of being perceived as ‘psychologically weak’ or ‘emotionally unstable’ many students do not avail them until their problems compound and they reach a critical state of mental health. What steps can the student community take to help students address problems related to their well-being before these problems become too serious? Can workshops and group therapy be introduced at a community-managed level to address important issues such as academic stress, procrastination, time management, healthy sleep, addiction, social confidence, and fending off peer and parental pressure? How can we structure these programs? How can we integrate them with counselling services? What steps can student leaders take to dispel any stigma associated with availing these programs and counselling services?

• Student well-being encompasses numerous topics. Some of the points raised, categorized very broadly, were:
1. Counselling services:
      (a) Stigma among students against physical counselling services
      (b) Use of online counselling services (E.g.: YourDost)
      (c) Engagement of Faculty Advisors in counselling
2. Socialization across different groups:
      (a) Faculty-student interactions
      (b) Intra- and inter-batch interactions
      (c) Inter-gender interactions
3. Performance issues: Procrastination, etc.
4. Issues such as addiction
• Representatives from several older IITs spoke about the shortage of counsellors for their large student bodies.
       - While some attributed this to archaic rules and red tape, almost everyone agreed upon a prevailing stigma among students against physical counselling in their colleges.
       - This leads to under-utilisation of these services, and subsequently their neglect. Similarly, innovative initiatives, such as Anti-Addiction Clinics and casual sessions, also fail to make substantial impacts.
       - On a whole, these services need institute-level refurbishing, particularly at IITs with large student bodies.
       - Counsellors can train students to counsel other students.
• Most IITs have arranged for online counselling platforms, such as YourDost. These platforms allow students to seek counselling anonymously from certified counsellors working on behalf of the platforms.
       - Institutes keep account of these platforms from regular reports and statistics.
       - These platforms are unable to identify or inform institutes about extreme cases requiring urgent responses (e.g.: suicidal tendencies).
• Some key suggestions proposed to tackle issues related to student well-being were:
       - Building recreational spaces (for instance, with bubble wrap, balloons, whiteboards, punching bags etc.) in hostels for stress-busting.
       - Sessions by counsellors on time management, dealing with procrastination etc. can be conducted in public spaces to increase participation. These also work as a platform for students to get to know their counsellors better.
       - Gender sensitization clubs can work on providing a safe space for discussion and helping build a more inclusive community.
• Unnecessary external media focus on progressive inter-gender hostel policies is negative, and inhibits positive inter-gender interactions on campus. Conservative mindset and lack of education and awareness outside campuses leads to backlash and slander.
• Initiatives that have worked in other IITs:
      • IIT Madras - “Leisure Time Activity Program” - engaged teachers for hobbies
      • Comprehensive Viva Voce at IIT Gandhinagar

IITs host students from all over the country. Often, freshers tend to form a group based on the vernacular languages they speak. These groups formed on linguistic lines often tend to deepen, leading to various problems. Students may miss out on the opportunity to appreciate and learn from a diverse peer group. What can student leaders do to overcome language barriers within the student body? Can specific events be organized that motivate students to learn about different languages, their origins, and cultures? What could these be?
• How can student mentors promote greater cross-lingual fresher interactions?
• Should freshers be made to step out of their comfort zone by forcing them to work in diverse groups?

• Student leaders can encourage students to identify more with their hostels or halls than their linguistic groups through various initiatives.
      – Inter-hostel/hall programs and inter-batch competitions can promote cross-cultural student interactions.
      – Strengthening hostel/hall identities can lessen the deeply divisive effects of linguistic groups in elections.
• There are two ways institutes can tackle linguistic groupism:
      – Pushing students of different cultures to assimilate into the institute culture. For example, institutes can strategically house first-year students from different states together to enhance interaction among various linguistic groups.
      – Helping students settle into college life by sending them to instituterecognized regional societies before introducing them to the institute culture.
• Students of different linguistic groups can collaborate over teaching languages and organizing regional festivals in a multicultural team, so that students get to learn about and appreciate other cultures and languages.
• Awareness about and participation in nationwide initiatives like ‘Ek Bharat - Shreshtha Bharat’ can help students develop a deeper appreciation for different cultures.

Students that participated in the conclave