Avinashilingam University may soon be a self-financed institution and the management is trying its best to make it happen so that the Chancellor can stick on to his post, alleged the faculty, who staged a protest by boycotting classes on Monday.
They were up in arms demanding that the Chancellor T.S.K. Meenakshisundaram resign to comply with the University Grants Commission norms for funded institutions and the institution then sign the Memorandum of Agreement to continue getting grants.
The protesting faculty explained that Mr. Meenakshisundaram’s continuance was against the UGC norms that said that no member of a society or trust that managed an institution should not hold any post in the latter.
Mr. Meenakshisundaram is a member of the Avinashilingam Education Trust that managed the university.
If he failed to resign, funding would be withheld. This would have a direct bearing on their salary, the fee structure of the students and the pension of the retired staff. And, with the UGC saying that the deadline for compliance was June 30, the faculty said that they did not have much time on hand.
Monday’s protest also saw retired staff extending support to the faculty. C. Sumathy, a retired professor of Tamil, said that the university management trying to change the administrative pattern had put a question mark over their future at a time when they had planned a peaceful retired life.
Mr. Meenakshisundaram was not available for comments, though.
