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| Sugata Bose |
Calcutta, July 24: Teaching at Presidency University will be a “strenuous” job involving regular research and upgrade of skills, Sugata Bose, the chairman of the panel formed to help restore the 194-year-old institution to its former glory, said today.
“Teachers of the erstwhile Presidency College will have to prove their scholarship, teaching ability and commitment to serving the institution beyond the confines of a classroom” to retain their jobs in Presidency University, Bose told The Telegraph.
After a meeting with the chief minister yesterday, the panel had announced that the existing faculty would be given the opportunity to continue at the institution if they were able to prove their merit.
“Scholarship, teaching and service will form the three foundations of recruitment,” Bose said. “It will be a strenuous job, where the teachers will have to work hard in the classroom and outside.”
When the Gardiner Professor of Oceanic History at Harvard University refers to scholarship, he means the “quality of the doctoral research and other published works”. In science, articles in the bellwether journals and their reviews will set the benchmark.
It is not time yet for students to assess their teachers — though that may not be too far away in the new scheme of things — but the interview panel will ascertain through several phases the classroom skills of a prospective Presidency teacher.
The teachers will have to make their classroom lectures interactive and be accessible to students for discussions outside, Bose said. “There should be tutorials and special classes with small groups.”
“And there has to be a sense of service,” he added. “A commitment to serve on committees and work for the academic betterment of the institution.”
The mentors have appealed to vice-chancellor Amita Chatterjee to distribute at the earliest forms giving the existing teachers the option of striving for a place in the new university or seeking a transfer elsewhere.
“We hope to know within a month the quality of teachers already available with us. That will help us figure out the priorities in terms of teacher recruitment,” Bose added.
In a state university, recruitment is done by a panel that includes a government representative and experts picked by a policy-making body — such as the syndicate in Calcutta University — and is invariably filled with loyalists of those in power.
In the case of Presidency, the task initially rests with the Presidency University council, formed by the former Left Front government that was infamous for packing academic institutions with its own.
The mentor group will help form search committees for each subject that will recommend the names of potential teachers to the council. Although the council holds the final seal on who will make the first batch of Presidency University teachers, the mentors hope that the names on offer will be of such academic acumen that an administrative body won’t be able to reject them.
The mentor group will not form the search committees but suggest names. The task is not mentioned in the terms of reference, clarified Bose. But the mentors will provide six-seven names for each subject from which the council will have to select the final, possibly three-member, teacher-search teams.
“The committees will be packed with people with outstanding credentials who, if they choose teachers, cannot go beneath a level,” said Bose.
But could this process of seeking ratification for every decision by the council have a negative impact, slowing down the entire process if nothing else?
“Even in foreign universities, key recruitments have to be cleared by the president or the trustees. But if the academic wing of the institution is very strong, the management cannot overrule its decisions,” said Bose. “That is the sort of value we have to create in Presidency’s academic authorities.”
At a later stage, the mentor group will recommend to the government a special status for Presidency that ensures better teacher salaries, possibly higher than even those offered by a central university.
“But more than teacher salaries, the status will be important to ensure academic autonomy, in terms of recruitment and policy-framing, the sort that even central universities do not enjoy,” Bose said.
To bring about that autonomy, changes would have to be made to the Presidency University Act. However, the change in statutes will come later, “only after the strength of outstanding faculty has attained the critical mass from where it can attract on its own the brightest teachers”.
Funding the grand designs around Presidency is a concern and chief minister Mamata has to help out on that front. “We are hopeful (of ‘substantial’ government assistance) because of the interest she has shown (in the mission),” said Bose. “On our part, we will suggest to the government ways to raise funds from the private sector and seek the Centre’s assistance.”
With economist-academic administrator Isher Judge Ahluwalia, National Library director-general and former professor Swapan Chakravorty and scientists Ashoke Sen and Himadri Pakrasi, historian Bose tried to figure out over the past two days the immediate needs of the institution and the resources available. “We now have a clear picture about each department,” Bose said.
The two mentors who could not be part of the first brainstorming session — economist Abhijit Banerjee and Jadavpur University professor emeritus Sukanta Chaudhuri — will be briefed about the developments when they arrive in Calcutta in a few days.
Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the adviser to mentor group chairman Bose, has been briefed about the progress so far over email.
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