Voices of the Provost Solutions Fellows
Rajashi Ghosh, PhD
Associate Professor of Human Resource Development
Department Chair, Policy, Organization, and Leadership
School of Education
Rajashi explores how mentoring, coaching, leadership development and workplace incivility impact workplace learning and development. Her interdisciplinary research on employee developmental relationships has resulted in scholarly awards from the Academy of Human Resource Development, the Academy of Management and the American Educational Research Association. Her work has been published in high-impact academic journals and also been featured in several popular media outlets including the Financial Times, Bloomberg Business Week, and American Banker. Rajashi recently published a critical piece on a mentor’s role in perpetuating toxic ideal workers’ norms in the MIT Sloan Management Review. Rajashi previously worked in the corporate sector on employee development and performance management.
How would you describe your experience as a Solutions Fellow?
Positively stretched. I was challenged to do things out of my comfort zone.
What did you enjoy the most about being a Solutions Fellow and why?
It was interesting to align our value offerings to what an organization wanted. It was humbling in a way as well. We have a certain expertise and we needed to recalibrate that in terms of what an industry partner wanted instead of aligning that to our intellectual curiosity.
What was an unexpected benefit or your biggest ‘a-ha’ moment as a Solutions Fellow?
Some things that weren’t immediately obvious came clear to me as time went on and I realized my expertise could be relevant in ways that I hadn’t previously realized. For example, my expertise is in human resource development and I worked with a colleague from the College of Nursing and Health Professions on a project with a nonprofit to come up with a curriculum to deliver to its clientele, who are adults with intellectual disabilities. I initially didn’t see the relevance of how I could apply my research expertise on developmental relationships to design this curriculum but as the project progressed, it became more apparent I could use my work and human resource development lens to develop social aspects of the curriculum.
How likely are you to recommend becoming a Solutions Fellow to a colleague and what is the main reason?
I would highly recommend it to a colleague. The interaction with industry and working with colleagues across the University showed me how you can successfully work as an interdisciplinary group to attend to clients’ needs. We learned from each other and were able to lean on each other.
What do you believe are the benefits of working with industry partners?
I have always advocated to have one foot in the practice world and one foot in the academic world. This keeps you updated on what is actually going on in industry and the issues they are facing. This also helps to build good relationships with external partners because they may come back to us with new opportunities that we can give to our students.
Why would you encourage faculty to work with external partners?
I always encourage faculty to seek out relationships with external partners because they could lead to future opportunities for research and experiential learning opportunities for students. I find that working with external partners is always a good investment. Working with external partners plants seeds that you can reap the benefits in many other ways whether it’s gathering data for research or securing projects to do in class.