Hyderabad: Osmania University has put-off its plans to felicitate distinguished alumni on the eve of the launch of the year-long centennial celebrations. It wanted to do a bit of elaborate homework in finalising the choices instead of announcing hundreds of names in haste, which might create headaches for it later.
According to sources, the OU administration did not want any controversy on the eve of the three-day inaugural fete and hence it postponed the event to a later date. As the centenary celebrations will be spread over a year with a host of programmes like the Indian Science Congress (in January, 2018) and the Global Alumni Meet (in December 2017) having been lined up, the varsity found justification in holding back the event for now and conducting it later.
“The university has 52 departments in all, like the Arts, Science, Engineering, Commerce, Management, Law etc, and it has sought proposals from them. While it received reputed names from some departments, the choices were unknown from some others. Since the number of departments is huge, it was decided to look at each one of them case-by-case and then make a final choice. Also, there were diverse opinions on why two personalities should be selected from each department to complete the list of a hundred worthies. Some departments might have five reputed names and some may not have even one. So, there is a proposal for doing away with the department-wise selection,” a faculty member, who did not wish to be quoted, said.
The varsity also wants to revisit the distinguished alumni term since it is being confined only to students. Nationally acclaimed Economics Professor Gautham Mathur was roped in as OU faculty (HoD of Economics department) in 1965 and under his tenure UGC sanctioned a special assistance programme (SAP) to the department in 1972. The varsity cannot ignore Mathur’s great contributions, but he cannot be included in the distinguished alumni list because he was from the teaching faculty. So, the varsity is likely to re-coin the phrase as “distinguished alumni and faculty”. There is also no clarity whether these felicitations are for only the alumni who are present. For instance, P.V. Narasimha Rao, who is one of the most famous names, is no more. If he had to be included, there should be a posthumous category. In that case felicitations have to be done of their family members, on behalf of them.
When asked whether it will be inconvenient for winners to travel to the city again to receive felicitations, OU officials said, in fact, Global Alumni was the biggest programme for old students and faculty because students from overseas, especially the US, will be coming in for that event in December.
When asked about names sent from the OU engineering college that has six departments, Principal S. Fathima said they were still working on it. “We had to do a bit of homework before finalising the names. Anyhow, the felicitation is not being done on the inaugural eve. We have time on hand,” she said.
