Bengaluru: Sixteen months and five interim vice-chancellors later, Bangalore University finally gets a full-time vice-chancellor. Chancellor of Universities and Governor Vajubhai Vala on Tuesday appointed former principal of University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE) Dr K.R. Venugopal as successor to Prof. B. Thimme Gowda, who retired from on February 6, 2017.
The delay in the appointment had been criticised by activists and officials of the university. Many said that the delay was because of the constant tussle between the state government and central the government was to blame for that. After Prof Thimme Gowda, Dr Jagadeesh Prakash was appointed interim V-C who served till March 31, 2017 when he retired. His successor Dr M. Muniraju served till July 29, while Dr H.N. Ramesh took over from him and served as the in-charge VC till December 13.
Dr V. Sudesh, principal, University Law College, took over the office then. Also the Dean of Law, Dr Sudesh resigned on March 12, saying the pressure of handling both the department and university responsibilities was too high. Dr I.S. Shiva Kumara, Dean of Faculty of Science, has been serving the post of the acting VC since March 17.
An educationist with 11 degrees spanning domains like Economics, Business Finance, Public Relations and Industrial Relations apart from engineering, Dr Venugopal was conferred with the Fellow of Indian Society for Technical Education (ISTE) for his contribution towards the growth and development of technical education in the country, earlier this year. He was also the first person at the varsity level from the country to be selected for the Association for Computing Machinery Distinguished Educator Award in 2016.
