Madurai Kamaraj University will be having a Centre for Film and Electronic Media Studies and Centre for Tourism and Hotel Management where a five-year integrated course in Masters in Film and Electronic Media studies and Master of Tourism and Hotel Management would be offered.
The Senate council had given its approval for the courses at its meeting at the university on Monday. The council, after an intense debate, also resolved to abolish the dummy numbering of answer-sheets during paper valuation for semester and non-semester examinations of courses offered in its affiliated colleges and distance education wing, which was also earlier approved by the academic council meeting held in September.
The members had varied opinions, and issues such as malpractice came to the fore and examples were cited that most universities still had dummy numbering in practice. But Vice-Chancellor Kalyani Mathivanan said that there should not be any room for sweeping allegations and said that there will be no dummy numbering and “we can give time a chance and go for a review after a year to analyse its merits and demerits.”
Senate member S. Krishnaswamy brought a resolution at the meeting seeking a white paper on the receipt and disbursement of the scholarships for students and fellowships for research scholars from various agencies. Moving the resolution he said, “The white paper could prove transparency and also ensure that the research scholars would be receiving the money in time and need not run from pillar to post.”
He said that the university had 55 members receiving Junior Research Fellowships, 10 receiving Council for Scientific and Industrial Research fellowships, 77 receiving Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for SC/STs, and 5 Maulana Azad National Fellowships for Minorities.
Replying to the resolution, the VC asked why white paper was not sought earlier and replied that the university had to collect an arrears of Rs.30 lakh from the students. Dr. Krishnasamy responded that just that a small number of students had not paid arrears did not mean that other students have to suffer.
“Fill vacancies”
Senate member V. Chinnaiah brought forward a resolution to fill the entire backlog of SC/ST vacancies in non-teaching section. Stating that there were about 51 backlog vacancies, he said that only after filling those vacancies, the university could go for fresh recruitment
Dr. Chinniah also said that reservation had not been followed for staff recruited under the UGC University for Potential Excellence programme. Though all the posts were temporary, what happened was that the recruited staff members were absorbed later and for the last ten years there had been no Scheduled Caste candidate who was recruited and absorbed. Syndicate Council member R. Kannan said that all necessary steps would be taken to fill the backlog vacancies.
Andipatti MLA Thanga Tamilselvan moved resolutions demanding funding for Madurai Kamaraj University College at Andipatti. He requested funding for infrastructure and academic upgradation with postgraduate courses. Replying to his resolutions, P.T. Manoharan, syndicate council member, said that paucity of funds was the reason as there were no funds released during 2006-12 and the only time funds were allotted by the State government was Rs. 1.05 crore in 2002-06 and said that the VC was taking serious efforts to get funds.
Other issues discussed in the senate meeting include reconstitution and ratification of Internal Quality Assurance Cell, P.G. Diploma in SCUBA Diving for Marine Biotechnology (1Year) to the Department of Marine and Coastal Studies, School of Energy, Environment and Natural Resources.
