Calcutta, Oct. 1: Amita Chatterjee will continue as vice-chancellor of Presidency University till a search panel selects her successor.
“We will set up a search committee soon to select a new VC for Presidency University. Amita Chatterjee will continue to hold the post till a new VC is selected,” higher education minister Bratya Basu said today after a meeting with governor M.K. Narayanan, who is also the chancellor of the university.
The minister refused comment on the composition of the panel. He also did not set a time frame by which a new VC would be appointed.
The one-year term of Chatterjee, the first VC of the fledgling varsity, ends on October 5.
The panel will be set up after the Pujas and the new VC will be selected before October-end, a source in the higher education department said.
Chatterjee, who taught philosophy at Jadavpur University for 31 years, had written to Narayanan on August 30, apparently expressing her desire to return to research work.
Higher education department sources said a change of guard had been “expected” after the Presidency University Council, headed by Chatterjee, ignored suggestions of the mentor group formed by Mamata Banerjee to turn the varsity into a centre for excellence.
The mentor group, headed by Harvard professor Sugata Bose, had proposed to the council, the highest decision-making body of Presidency University, not to start post-graduation courses in six new subjects as the varsity did not have the necessary academic and physical infrastructure. The mentor group had also suggested that the varsity should not start PhD courses in all existing subjects.
“The fact that Chatterjee did not conform to the mentor group’s suggestion did not go down well with the government,” a source said.
Minister Basu said the state government would promulgate an ordinance to create a uniform governance system across universities after the Puja vacation.
Basu also announced that the term of Jadavpur University VC P.N. Ghosh had been extended by six months. Ranjan Chakraborty, professor of history at JU, has been selected as the new VC of Vidyasagar University.
