Sabita Sawhney: Professor of Management and Restaurant Owner

Many people know Sabita Sawhney as owner of Sabi’s Café, an ayurvedic vegetarian restaurant, where she cooks and serves delicious Indian lunches five times a week. Others know her as assistant professor of management at MIU who teaches courses in lean management, entrepreneurship, and marketing. How does she do all this? She practices what she teaches and applies the principles of lean management to all areas of her life.

Dr. Sabita Sawhney, assistant professor of management

Dr. Sawhney came to MIU from Western Illinois University, where she was a member of the faculty. She wanted to pursue a PhD on the effect of trust on supply chain management. Because trust is related to self-development, she felt MIU would be the perfect place for her. After visiting MIU with her family, they all learned the Transcendental Meditation^® technique and decided to move here.

“I was struck by the quality of students and the quality of faculty we have here,” said Dr. Sawhney. “The students who come here are really passionate about what they want out of life. And the faculty deeply care about their students. In Consciousness Based^SM education we care about the mind, body, and the soul, not just a degree. You become one with the knowledge.”

Professor Sawhney completed her PhD at MIU in 2012, receiving the Outstanding Student Award and the Veda Vyasa Award for best PhD dissertation. In addition to the management classes she has been teaching, she also decided to offer an ayurvedic cooking course, because she wanted to share her passion for cooking with students. The two-week Forest Academy course was an instant hit and now she teaches it every semester, often with a waiting list of students.

At Sabi’s Café

With a full teaching load and regularly presenting her research at management conferences, opening a restaurant was the last thing on Dr. Sawhney’s mind. Encouraged by her students, however, she changed her mind and opened her café a year ago. “I wanted to do this for students who don’t have time to cook, don’t have a kitchen, and want to eat ayurvedic food,” she said. Using fresh ingredients and keeping the menu simple, she is able to be efficient, avoid waste, and even offer a 15 percent discount to students.

Sabita’s husband Rajiv is an MIU adjunct faculty member and their two children, Pearl and Surya, graduated from Maharishi School of the Age of Enlightenment with honors.