JNU's new academic initiatives, faculty recruitment; VC shares achievements made in last 1 year

NEW DELHI: The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit completes one year of service at the university as the Vice-Chancellor today, February 7. The Vice-Chancellor sharing the achievements made in the last one year said that the university administration has strengthened a positive and conducive academic environment of the university by carrying out its core function of coordinating, streamlining, monitoring and evaluation of the academic development processes in the university.

In addition to new academic initiatives including the approval of the Academic Council to set up Special Centre for Tamil Studies, framework agreement with Springer Nature to publish books of JNU faculty and initiating the process of registering the JNU logo developed in 1986, as many as nine new programmes have been introduced in the university during Pandit’s tenure.

ALSO READ || JNU renews contract of campus security firm despite controversies

The university is the past one year also celebrated the first ever Mata Savitribai Phule Jayanti on January 3, 2023, Gita Jayanti: learning the philosophy, spirituality and way of life on December 3, 2022. Tamil Heritage and Indian Languages week was held between December 12 and 16, 2022) in the week and Freedom Wall to mark Azad ki Amrit Mahotsav in September 2022. The university also installed and inaugurated the National Flag in the campus on August 2022.

As a first, JNU under the Vice-Chancellor Pandit framed recruitment rules for non-teaching employees. Senior administrative positions like registrar, finance office and controller of examination were filled on a full-time basis, the university statement issued today said. While announcing the achievements of the university in the past one year, the Vice-Chancellor listed some challenges faced by JNU. The challenges include:

• Synchronization of the academic calendar, disrupted since early 2020;
• Completion of PhD submissions delayed due to Covid;
• Modernization of the campus infrastructure;
• Expansion of the implementation of NEP 2020 through more MA programmes in different Schools;
• Increasing the University-Corpus fund from Rs 50 Crores to Rs 250 Crores;
• Establishing the infrastructure for the new School of Indian Languages and Civilization;
• Increasing the number and quantum of non-NET fellowships through CSR/philanthropy