University of Calcutta

University of Calcutta
কলিকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়

Seal of the University of Calcutta
Motto Advancement of Learning
Type Public
Established 1857 (1857)
Chancellor Keshari Nath Tripathi,
Governor of West Bengal
Vice-Chancellor Sugata Marjit
Students 22,520[1]
Undergraduates 3,715[1]
Postgraduates 15,750[1]
Location Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Campus Urban, 136 affiliated colleges[2]
Affiliations UGC, NAAC, AIU
Website www.caluniv.ac.in

The University of Calcutta (Bengali: কলিকাতা বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়; informally known as Calcutta University or CU) is a public state university located in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta), West Bengal, India established on 24 January 1857.[3] It was the first institution in Asia to be established as a multidisciplinary and secular Western-style university. Within India it is recognized as a "Five-Star University" and a "Centre with Potential for Excellence" by the University Grants Commission and the National Assessment and Accreditation Council.[4][5] There are four Nobel laureates associated with this university: Ronald Ross, Rabindra Nath Tagore, C. V. Raman and Amartya Sen.[6] The university has the highest number of students who have cleared the doctoral entrance eligibility exam in Natural Science & Arts conducted by Government of India's National Eligibility Test to become eligible to pursue research with full scholarship awarded by the Government of India.[7]

Rankings

The university is recognized as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. The University of Calcutta was ranked 401+ in the QS World University Rankings of 2011[8] and 43 in the QS University Rankings for Asia in 2012.[9] In India, it was ranked 2 by the India Today Top India Universities of 2012[10] and 2013 and 2014.[11]

History

The Calcutta University Act came into force on 24 January 1857 and a 41-member Senate was formed as the policy making body of the university. When the university was first established it had a catchment area covering the area from Lahore to Rangoon (now in Myanmar), and Ceylon, the largest of any Indian university.[6]

The first Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor of the Calcutta University were Governor General Lord Canning and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Sir James William Colvile, respectively.[12] In 1858, Joddu Nath Bose and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay became the first graduates of the university.[13] On 30 January 1858, the Syndicate of the Calcutta University started functioning.[13]

Following its inauguration, many institutions gradually came under its jurisdiction. Kadambini Ganguly and Chandramukhi Basu became the first female graduates of the country in 1882.[13] The Honourable Justice Gooroodas Banerjee became the first Indian Vice-Chancellor of University of Calcutta in the year 1890.[12] Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee was the Vice-Chancellor for four consecutive two-year terms (1906–1914) and a fifth two-year term (1921–23). Four Nobel laureates were associated with this university: Ronald Ross. Rabindra Nath Tagore, C. V. Raman and Amartya Sen.[6]

Seal

The current university seal (top of the page) is the modified version of the sixth seal. However the motto Advancement of Learning remained same through it transitions.[14]

Campuses

Ashutosh Building at the College Street campus
Hazra Campus

The university has a total of 14 campuses spread over the city of Kolkata and its suburbs. The major campuses are the Central Campus (Ashutosh Shiksha Prangan) in College Street, Rashbehari Shiksha Prangan in Rajabazar, Taraknath Palit Shiksha Prangan in Ballygunge and Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan in Alipore. [15]

Other campuses include the Hazra Road Campus, the University Press and Book Depot, the B. T. Road Campus, the Viharilal College of Home Science Campus, the University Health Service, the Haringhata Campus, the Dhakuria Lakes (University Rowing Club) and the University Ground and Tent at Maidan.[15]

Asutosh Siksha Prangan

Asutosh Siksha Prangan (commonly called the College Street Campus) is the main campus of the university, where the administrative work is done. Located on College Street, is spread over a small area of 2.7 acres (0.011 km2).[16]

Rashbihari Siksha Prangan

Rashbihari Siksha Prangan (also known as University College of Science and Technology or commonly Rajabazar Science College), located on Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road in Rajabazar, established in 1914,[17] houses several scientific and technological departments, including pure and applied chemistry, pure and applied physics, applied mathematics, psychology, physiology, biophysics and molecular biology, to name but a few.[15]

Taraknath Siksha Prangan

Taraknath Siksha Prangan (also known as University College of Science or commonly Ballygunge Science College) on Ballygunge Circular Road in the southern part of the city houses the departments of agriculture, anthropology, biochemistry, botany, genetics,statistics, zoology, neuroscience, marine science, biotechnology and most notably geology among others.[15]

Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan

Sahid Khudiram Siksha Prangan at Alipore houses the department of History, Archeology, Business Management, Political Science, Sociology and others.

Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy Siksha Prangan

The university is building a "Campus" which is known as "Technology Campus" or "Tech Campus", to bring together the Three engineering and technical departments(the Departments are Department of Computer Science and Engineering,A.K.C School of Information Technology,Department of Applied Optics & Photonics), in Salt Lake.[17][18]

Academics

Bose Institute is associated with the university

Research

Undergraduates enroll for a three-year program. Students choose a major when they enter the university, and cannot change it later, unless they opt for the university's professional or self-financed postgraduate programs later. Science and business disciplines are in high demand, largely in the anticipation of better employment prospects. Most programs are organized on an annual basis, though some programs are semester dependent. Most departments offer masters programs of a year or of a couple of years' duration. Research is conducted in specialized institutes as well as individual departments, many of which have doctoral programs. University of Calcutta has the biggest Research Center which started from the 100th Science Congress of India in January, 2013. This Center is known as "Center for Research in Nanosience and Nanotechnology" or "CRNN" in Technology Campus of CU at Salt Lake, West Bengal. The university has 18 research centres, 710 teachers, 3000 non-teaching staff and 11,000 post-graduate students.[1]

Faculties and departments

The university has sixty five departments organised into eight faculties: agriculture; arts; commerce; social welfare & business management; education, journalism and library science; engineering & technology; fine arts, music and home science; law and science.[19]

The social sciences and business management departments are housed at the Alipore campus

Faculty of Agriculture

This faculty consists only one department called the Institute of Agricultural Science and offers post graduate courses in agro-technology, agro-ecology, agronomy, agriculture chemistry and soil science, agriculture and rural development, agriculture and resource economics, agricultural engineering, animal science, bacteriology, crop science, dairy science, fisheries science, food technology, horticulture, genetics & plant breeding, soil and water science, seed science & technology among others.

The College of Agriculture was founded by professor Pabitra Kumar Sen, who was the Khaira Professor of Agriculture in early 1950s.[20]

Faculty of Arts

This faculty consists the departments of Ancient Indian History and Culture, archaeology, anthropology, Arabic & Persian, Bengali, language and literature, comparative Indian literature, creative writing, classics, demography, economics, ethnic studies, English language and literature, Hindi, history, linguistics, museology, Pali, philosophy, psychology, political science, public policy & administration, sociology, Sanskrit, South and South-East Asian Studies, theater and drama, gender and women's studies.[21]

Faculty of Commerce, Social Welfare & Business Management

This faculty consists of the departments of business management and commerce.

Faculty of Education, Journalism and Library Science

This faculty consists of three departments that offer courses on education, journalism and mass communication, and library & information science.[22]

Faculty of Engineering & Technology

This faculty consists of the departments of applied optics and photonics, applied physics, chemical engineering, chemical technology, computer science and engineering, information technology,polymer science and technology, petroleum engineering, radio physics and electronics.[23]

Faculty of Fine Arts, Music and Home Science

This faculty consists of the Department of home science, which offers courses on subjects such as food and nutrition, human development, home science.[24]

Faculty of Law

This faculty comprises only the department of law. Established in January 1909 as the "University College of Law," it was granted the status as the department of law of the university in February 1996. The Faculty has many lumanries associated with it like Rajendra Prasad, Rashbehari Bose, Chhitaranjan Das to name a few.

Faculty of Science

This faculty has 19 departments. This faculty offers courses on traditional science subjects like botany, biochemistry, biomechanics, chemistry, clinical investigation, climate science & policy, cellular and molecular biology, genome science, geology, geography, physics, statistics, zoology, atmospheric science, biotechnology, bioinformatics, environmental science, earth science, electronic science, genetics, microbiology, materials science, marine science, neuroscience, population health, pure mathematics, space science, wildlife ecology, etc.[25]

University Central Library viewed from College Square

The Department of Applied Physics was established in 1925 and is located in Anand Nagar. Studies are also being conducted in instrumentation engineering, electrical engineering, optics, and opto-electronics.

Libraries

The first university library started functioning in the 1870s. Apart from 39 departmental libraries it has a central library, two campus libraries, and two libraries of the advanced centers spread across the seven campuses. Students of affiliated colleges can also access the central library. The university library has over 10 million books and more than 200,000 bound journals, proceedings, manuscripts, patents etc.[26]

Student halls of residence

Most of the affiliated undergraduate colleges located in the city have their own separate student hostels. The university has 17 hostels, of which 8 hostels (2 for UG and 6 for PG) are for women, and in total 13 hostels are for PG students, which are scattered all over the city.[27] It accommodates around 2000 odd students, which is far less than its student intake.

Colleges

As of 2012, 136 colleges are affiliated with the university.[2] A large number of colleges and institutes were formerly affiliated to this university, but have left following political transformations, or gradual restructuring.

Accreditation and recognition

The university enjoys both national and international repute:

University and college rankings
General – international
QS (World)[8] 401+
QS (Asian)[9] 43
General – India
India Today[10] 2
Medical - India
Business – India

Notable initiatives

Calcutta Medical College in 1910

Some of the notable initiatives associated with the university are:

Vice chancellors

Due to his works on the comparative-historical evolution of legal and political systems, the fourth vice chancellor Sir Henry Maine is widely regarded as a founding figure in the sociology of law
During the tenure of vice-chancellor Sir Asutosh Mookerjee, the university underwent significant expansion
Justice Radhabinod Pal, who served as vice-chancellor, went on to be the sole dissenting judge in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East's trials of Japanese war crimes committed during World War II

Notable people

One of the first female graduates of the university, Kadambini Ganguly was also the first qualified female physician of the British empire
One of the first female graduates of the university and the British empire, Chandramukhi Basu was also the first female head of an undergraduate college in South Asia

The university has produced many scientists, engineers, world leaders and Nobel laureates and teachers. As the oldest university of Bengal and India, it attracted students from diverse walks of life. Nobel laureates who either studied or worked here include Rabindranath Tagore, Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, Ronald Ross, and Amartya Sen. The Academy Award winning director Satyajit Ray was an alumnus of this university. So was the composer of the national song of India, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. Some of the industrialists who studied in this university include Sir Rajen Mookerjee, Rama Prasad Goenka, Lakshmi Mittal, and Aditya Birla. Notable scientists and mathematicians associated with the university include Jagadish Chandra Bose, Prafulla Chandra Ray, Meghnad Saha, Anil Kumar Gain, and Satyendra Nath Bose.

A nationalist leader, and former president of the Indian National Congress, co-founder of the Indian National Army, and head of state of the Provisional Government of Free India, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose here. Other presidents of the Indian National Congress include Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee, Surendranath Banerjee, Anandamohan Bose, Romesh Chunder Dutt, Bhupendra Nath Bose and Madan Mohan Malaviya. Malaviya was also the founder of the Banaras Hindu University. Among the presidents of India associated with this university are Rajendra Prasad (who studied here) and Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan (who taught here), and the incumbent Pranab Mukherjee, who both studied and taught at affiliated colleges of the university. The current vice president of India, Mohammad Hamid Ansari studied here, as did a former deputy prime minister of India, Jagjivan Ram. Many governors of Indian states studied here, including the first Indian governors of Bihar and Odisha, Lord Satyendra Prasanno Sinha of Raipur, Chandeshwar Prasad Narayan Singh, governor of the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, and Banwari Lal Joshi, the former governor of Delhi, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and current governor of Uttarakhand. The former ruler of the Indian princely state of Coochbehar, Maharaja Nripendra Narayan Bhupa Bahadur as well as Patayet Sahib Maharajkumar Bhoopendra Narayan Singh Deo of Saraikela were also alumni of this university, as were colonial era prime ministers Albion Rajkumar Banerjee of Kashmir and A.K. Fazlul Huq of undivided Bengal. Among its former students are eight chief ministers of West Bengal (Prafulla Chandra Ghosh, Bidhan Chandra Ray, Prafulla Chandra Sen, Ajoy Mukherjee, Siddhartha Shankar Ray, Jyoti Basu, Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, and Mamata Banerjee), three chief ministers each of Assam (Gopinath Bordoloi, Bishnuram Medhi and Golap Borbora) and Bihar (Krishna Sinha, Binodanand Jha and Ram Sundar Das), two chief ministers of Meghalaya (B.B. Lyngdoh and S.C. Marak), and a chief minister each of Madhya Pradesh (Ravishankar Shukla), Manipur (Rishang Keishing), Nagaland (S.C. Jamir) and Sikkim (B B Gurung), . Among the chief justices of the Supreme Court of India are Bijan Kumar Mukherjea, Sudhi Ranjan Das, Amal Kumar Sarkar, Ajit Nath Ray, Sabyasachi Mukharji and Altamas Kabir. Others have also served as judges in the Supreme Court, and as chief justices and judges in state high courts.

Heads of state from other countries associated with this university include four presidents of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Mohammad Mohammadullah, Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, Abdus Sattar, two prime ministers of Bangladesh, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and Muhammad Mansur Ali, three prime ministers of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Bogra, Hussein Shaheed Suhrawardy, and Nurul Amin, the first premier of Burma under British rule, Ba Maw, the first president of Nepal, Ram Baran Yadav and the first democratically elected prime minister of Nepal, Bishweshwar Prasad Koirala, and his successor Tulsi Giri.

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 CU information brochure for MSc, BTech Retrieved 25 November 2011
  2. 1 2 "Antidote to admission hit-and-miss". The Telegraph. 22 May 2012. Retrieved 1 June 2012.
  3. ↑ Department of Higher Education, West Bengal higherednwb.net. Retrieved 6 August 2012
  4. ↑ Growth Spiral
  5. 1 2 3 CU makes the highest grade
  6. 1 2 3 4 About the university @ Official site, University of Calcutta. Retrieved 7 December 2011
  7. ↑ CSIR–UGC National Eligibility Test: a performance indicator of basic science education in Indian universities: Inderpal, S.Chetri, A. Saini and R. Luthra, Current Science, Vol.97, No 4, 25 August 2009 cs-test.ias.ac.in. Retrieved 13 August 2012
  8. 1 2 "QS World University Rankings". QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. 2014. Retrieved April 21, 2015.
  9. 1 2 "QS Asian University Rankings". QS Quacquarelli Symonds Limited. 2014. Retrieved April 20, 2015.
  10. 1 2 "Masters of excellence". India Today. 18 May 2012. Retrieved 20 June 2012.
  11. ↑ India Today ranks India's Best Universities for 2013 : EDUCATION - India Today. Indiatoday.intoday.in (2013-05-24). Retrieved on 2013-07-16.
  12. 1 2 "Genesis and Historical Overview of the University". University and its Campuses. University of Calcutta. Archived from the original on 21 March 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2007.
  13. 1 2 3 "Memorable Events". University and its Campuses. University of Calcutta. Archived from the original on 21 March 2007. Retrieved 22 March 2007.
  14. ↑ Seals of the University : Changes over the Years caluniv.ac.in. Retrieved 5 August 2012
  15. 1 2 3 4 University Campus caluniv.ac.in. Retrieved 12 August 2012
  16. ↑ "Campus Area". University and its Campuses. University of Calcutta. Archived from the original on 21 March 2007. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  17. 1 2 University College of Science, Technology & Agriculture caluniv-ucsta.net. Retrieved 12 August 2012
  18. ↑ "Calcutta University plans Technology campus". Other States: West Bengal (The Hindu). 16 January 2006. Retrieved 13 April 2007.
  19. ↑ "Courses Offered". University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  20. ↑ "Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Agriculture". Courses offered. University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  21. ↑ "Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Arts". Courses offered. University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  22. ↑ "Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Education, Journalism and Library Science". Courses offered. University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  23. ↑ "University of Calcutta - Academic Departments". caluniv.ac.in. Retrieved 19 May 2014.
  24. ↑ "Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Fine Arts, Music and Home Science". Courses offered. University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  25. ↑ "Faculty Council for Post-Graduate Studies in Science". Courses offered. University of Calcutta. Retrieved 11 April 2007.
  26. ↑ University library caluniv.ac.in. Retrieved 24 March 2013
  27. ↑ University Halls and Hostels caluniv.ac.in. Retrieved 5 December 2012
  28. ↑ "CU gets "Potential for Excellence" tag of University Grants Commission". Cities.expressindia.com. 25 November 2010. Retrieved 7 March 2011.
  29. ↑ Manuscript Conservation Centres National Mission for Manuscripts.
  30. ↑ NAAC accredited Institutes naac.gov.in. Retrieved 6 August 2012
  31. ↑ Medical College , Kolkata Official website of Calcutta Medical College. Retrieved 5 August 2012.
  32. ↑ History Of Bethune College bethunecollege.ac.in Official Site of Bethune College. Retrieved 5 August 2012
  33. ↑ A Journey through 145 Years gcac.edu.in. Official site of Government College of Art & Craft, Kolkata. Retrieved 5 August 2012
  34. ↑ Historical Background of IISWBM iiswbm.edu. Official website of IISWBM. Retrieved 5 August 2012

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Coordinates: 22°34′35″N 88°21′43″E / 22.57639°N 88.36194°E / 22.57639; 88.36194

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