A Glimpse of the Past
The Association of Indian Students (AIS) has been existing on the campus since 1993. However, the Association was reinstated to its current form on October 02, 2000, with an intent to bring back the spirit of Indian-ness to the Tech campus, and has been doing consistently well ever since.
The renaissance of the Association was a result of some serious thoughts initiated by Ameya Sudhir Kantak and Kiran Chakravarthula, followed by a series of discussions at the latter’s apartment with a countable number of participants. The discussions started with the basic question – “Do we need an Association again, when one was defunct earlier, and we have done without any such Association for the last three years?” “Yes!”, came the answer, anonymously and unanimously, and the reason stated was simple – “The group of Indian students has reportedly gone down since 1997, but now we have nearly 150 Indian students on the campus!” It was decided that the upcoming Gandhi Jayanthi would mark the inception of the Association of Indian Students (AIS), retaining the name of the previously existed Association. Bylaws of the previous version that existed in the University archives were changed, and more paperwork followed fast, and the Association came into re-existence, as planned, on October 02, 2000, with a strength of 138 members.
Since then, the AIS has been actively engaged in making Indian students at Louisiana Tech University feel "at home". The involvement of AIS with Indian students starts with guiding new applicants with necessary information pertaining to the University, informing prospective students about the academic programs and research at the University, guiding students through the visa procedures, and extends to picking up students from the nearby Monroe Regional Airport, accommodating them temporarily at current students’ apartments while guiding them in finding accommodation for themselves, apart from conducting various events on the campus, sometimes in conjunction with the International Student Office (ISO), International Student Association (ISA), and the India Association of North Louisiana (IANL). Through all these, the Association of Indian Students works hand in hand with the ISO, while also helping the Office through orientation for Indian students on the campus.
The Association that one sees today is the result of hard work by many individuals; the AIS feels it a responsibility and honor to acknowledge them all. While it is not practically possible to name all the volunteers that extend their helping hands in organizing various activities of the Association, we thank them all on par with those who served the panel of the AIS officers in the past, since it reinstatement in 2000.
|
2000-'01 |
| President |
Uday Sankar
Verma |
| Vice
President |
Kiran
Chakravarthula |
| General
Secretary |
Deepak
Ramamurthy |
|
2001 |
| President |
Kiran
Chakravarthula |
| Vice
President |
Kshitish
Vijay Chitnis |
| General
Secretary |
Shantanu
Chandra |
|
2001-'02 |
| President |
Mangilal
Agarwal |
| Vice
President |
Vikas
Rajkumar Lulla |
| General
Secretary |
Gautam
Chibbar |
|
2002-'03 |
| President |
Swapnil
Afzalpurkar |
| Vice
President |
Asha Kiran
Kota |
| General
Secretary |
Ramana
Kishore Sunkam |
|
2003-'04 |
| President |
Aravind
Chamarti |
| Vice
President |
Asha Kiran
Kota |
| General
Secretary |
Shiva
Shankar Naidu |
|
2004-'05 |
| President |
Venkatachalam "Mukund" Padmanabhan |
| Vice
President |
Kunal Tipnis |
| General
Secretary |
Bharat
Peddireddy |
|
2005-'06 |
| President |
Venkateswara
Raj Gopal Lanka |
| Vice
President |
Ameya Anil
Nagle |
| General
Secretary |
Vinaybabu
Sunkara |
|
2006-'07 |
| President |
Nalinkanth Ghone Veerabadran |
| Vice
President |
Sumi Singh |
| General
Secretary |
Indraneel
Sanikommu |
|
