Tag: NAAC

Round 3 of the NAACcreditation

indexThe results from the NAAC reaccreditation are now out, and our University has been awarded the overall score of 3.72 out of 4. This is lower than what we had in the first round of reaccreditation when we were given 3.89 out of 4. It is disappointing that we have slipped by 0.17, a percentage drop in quality of about 5%, however that may be estimated… From the documents that can be seen on their website, it is clear that with the passage of time the NAAC has gotten somewhat stricter, but that in of itself is little solace, given the effort that went into the preparation for the visit of the peer review team in January.

SMBe that as it may, all of us owe a word of appreciation to the Coordinator of the effort, Professor Sachi Mohanty of the Department of English. He was a veritable one-man army, mobilizing the efforts of so many staff in preparing reports, collecting information, supervising cleaning, painting, and doing the million things that we all saw him do.

As a colleague wrote to him after the NAAC peer team visit, “I want to take the opportunity to congratulate you and your team for an excellent academic presentation and for the efficient coordination and organization of the NAAC visit. We may know the grade/marks later, but whatever these may be, you and your team made the UoH community proud of its achievements.

I would also like to acknowledge and salute your personal commitment, dedication and devotion to the University; it is rare to find this today. You not only put together and presented an academic assessment through the voluminous report documenting the achievements of the various Departments and Centres and Schools but also highlighted the small and big endeavors made by the teaching, non teaching and student community. As a member of the campus residential community I want to particularly thank you for efforts you made to improve our environment and ambience and make the campus a clean and aesthetic place to live in. In ensuring this, you went beyond the call of duty.“

we-try-harder-tvlowcost-australia There are some advantages to not being No. 1 – one tries harder to achieve excellence… There will be time enough to discuss what all needs improving at the University- starting with the infrastructure, both physical and academic. But we should find both the time and the will to bring about some real changes, to earn the higher grades that we all know that we are capable of. Till then, we should keep trying.

See an interview on the local tv station: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57gT5J8wrxE#aid=P-sgiBrV7IE

The Second Law

chaosThe Second Law of Thermodynamics, namely the general principle that the entropy of the universe increases, seems to apply to institutions as well as to the more restricted type of system it was first formulated for. The entropy is a measure of disorder in a system, so the second law may be reworded to say that the disorder in a system, in general, increases with time. (And conversely, this also helps to determine what is the ‘arrow of time‘ – the more disorder, almost inevitably the later in time.)

In recent weeks I have been thinking of the appropriateness of this concept outside the narrow realm of machines and engines where it was first developed. Going through some websites, I came across the following discussion, which asserts that “associated with the entropy production is the loss of ability to do work.” How valid, in general, though of course the context in which the statement was first made was quite different. And also, an “increase in overall disorder is therefore spontaneous. If the volume and energy of a system are constant, then every change to the system increases the entropy.” Change energy to UGC funding, and system to campus, and you can see that that statement still rings true!

imagesThe impending NAAC visit provides one focus for such thoughts. Although the campus has undergone quite a transformation, it has taken the concerted efforts of a large number of people, our NAAC team, the Engineering and Estate sections, among others, to bring back a semblance of orderliness on the campus. A huge amount of physical energy has gone into actually reducing the disorder on our campus- the repainted buildings are looking good, the roads are cleaner, the undergrowth has been cleared away- all in all, there is a freshness that is evident. Thanks to them all!

I don’t know what rating we will get since that depends not just on how we look but more on what we are, and the next few days will give us a chance to put forward our very best. But it is true that regardless of the NAAC visit outcome, it is getting increasingly difficult for the University to cope with the reduced funding and the consequent increase in entropy- be it on the matter of upkeep of our infrastructure, or the inability to meet the increasing demands of a larger and evolving community.

We have to look beyond the NAAC visit, even though it is very important that we take full cognizance of it. Occasions like this give us an opportunity to revisit if and why we are a University of Excellence, and what we really need to do to earn our spurs each day. In projecting the best in ourselves- and there is clearly a lot that is very good- we also recognize those parts that could be better, and indeed, should be better.

But in any case, whose University is it anyway?  It is ours, and it is pretty much up to us as to where we take it in the years to come. Any change that has to come has to come from within the system if it is to be lasting. That is, of course, one of the ways in which we might be able to fight the Second Law, but more importantly, that is the only way in which we can become the University that we want to be.