Madurai Kamaraj University is pursuing a proposal to have an exclusive satellite and has initiated discussions with scientists of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).
A preliminary meeting was held in this regard. Getting the Rs. 3-crore facility was the agenda for the coming year, Vice-Chancellor R. Karpaga Kumaravel said here on Thursday. “My priority is to mobilise funds for this. We will form a technical committee comprising members from the Department of Science and Technology, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, university faculty members and senior professors,” he said.
The Vice-Chancellor was speaking at the valedictory function of the ‘Induction Programme for the newly appointed Assistant Professors.
Listing out various future plans for the university, Dr.Karpaga Kumaravel said that another priority area will be to improve the university’s ambience.
“The first stage of landscaping had been completed. Go-green campaign will be intensified and two banks — State Bank of India and Indian Bank — have agreed to contribute for the next round of landscaping,” he said.
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The next stage of recruitment will also be taken up. “What we did now was only backlog recruitment. The next step is to fill up 11 University Grants Commission (UGC)-sanctioned posts, nine professor posts and 23 sanctioned posts in the Directorate of Distance Education,” he said.
Mr. Kumaravel stated that the recent recruitment of 89 Assistant Professors had given him “a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction. Their selection was unanimous and there was no dissent. A transparent document was prepared and all the norms were followed.”
The appointments were made strictly as per the Tamil Nadu G.O. and the UGC norms. “It is easy to make allegations and criticism. But, I can only say that there was no deviation of norms,” he said.
S. Baskaran, Member-Secretary, Tamil Nadu State Council for Higher Education, congratulated the Vice-Chancellor for completing the recruitment of new teachers “which was pending for a long time due to a variety of reasons.”
He urged the new Assistant Professors to follow student-centric teaching model and also learn to respect every student whatever be his ability or background.
M.S. Palanichamy, former Vice-Chancellor, Tamil Nadu Open University, and P.B. Gopalakrishnan, Director, Academic Staff College, were among those who spoke.
