JU teachers meet guv with 6 ‘complaints’

KOLKATA: Jadavpur University will not be able to maintain its high standards of academic excellence unless immediate steps are taken to right some ongoing wrongs, feel some of the best known emeritus teachers of the university. On Monday afternoon, they met Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi with this message on their lips and an appeal that he investigates their complaints and saves the academic fabric of the institution.Tripathi promised to look into the problems in both his capacities as governor and as chancellor of the university.
The five emissaries from JU who met Tripathi were Sukanta Chaudhuri, renowned teacher of English, former JU VC Ashokenath Basu, former VC of Vidyasagar University Anandadeb Mukherjee, former Presidency University VC Amita Chatterjee and former chairperson of the state women’s commission Yashodhara Bagchi. They briefed the media after coming out of their 45-minute-long meeting with the governor and maintained that the discussion was purely academic and did not veer towards the recent students’ outrage on campus to counter which VC Abhijit Chakraborty had to call the police to the campus.
“We came to draw his attention towards the fact that some recent measures are proving to be counter-productive and will be detrimental to the academic health of the university in the long run. We drew up a list of six such points and have handed them over to the chancellor,” Chaudhuri said.
Most of the points deal with the revised act of the university that the teachers feel is interfering with its autonomy. They feel that the democratic process by which all decisions regarding teachers’ and deans’ appointments used to happen, has been set aside by the new act. “No longer does the Executive Council approve the appointments of the teachers whose names are shortlisted by the selection committees. Today the VC’s discretion is final in this regard. Similarly, for the selection of deans, the university no longer depends on its teachers but on the state government,” said Basu.