SMVDU Katra: The 29th meeting of the Academic Council of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University held on 16th September in the Chairmanship of the Vice Chancellor Prof. Sanjeev Jain. Prof. Jain impressed upon that the entire teaching has to be student centric, i.e., the courses should be designed and implemented keeping in mind the employability of students. The Action Taken Report (ATR) and the agenda items were presented by Dr. Sumeet Gupta, Dean Academic Affairs. ATR included issues like inclusion MOOC courses in curricula, eligibility criteria of admissions in certain programs, fee waivers for the wards of faculty and staff members, review of proportion of theory and practical in examinations, reservation of seats for persons with disability. Discussion on the agenda items included rationalization of seats in various programs, introduction of M.Sc. Genetics course in the Dept. of Biotechnology from next academic year, modification in students’ merit-cum-means fellowship scheme, recommendations of the Board of Studies of Departments of Energy Management, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Economics, Computer Science, Electronics and Communication Engineering, School of Business and College of Nursing. Revised Intellectual Property Rights bye-laws, award of degrees to the graduated students across disciplines, proposal for the creation of the post of Examination Controller and new faculty appraisal parameters were also discussed.
It was observed that the departments are very much focused on making their curricula relevant to the industry and corporate requirements and have been able to instill among students the sense of elevation and pride that they learn the latest and updated things. The external expert members commended the initiatives and the best practices of the University. Among the external experts Prof. Sunil Pandey from IIT Delhi, Prof. Rajesh Srivastav from IIT Roorkee and Prof. K. K. Biswas Emeritus Professor IIT Delhi participated. Registrar Prof. V.K. Bhat, Prof. D. Mukhopadhyaya Dean Faculty of Management, Prof. V. Varma Dean Faculty of Engineering, all the Heads of the Departments such as Prof. B. Kamaiah, Prof. I. K. Pandita, Dr. S. Mehta, Dr. K.R. Jha, Dr. V.K. Tripathi, Dr. Amitabh Dwivedi, Dr. B. Kaushik, Ar. Aditya Singh, Dr. S. Anand, Dr. A. K. Das, Dr. Y. Khajuria Dean of Students and Head of Dept. Physics, Dr. Suparn Sharma faculty In-Charge Central Library, Dr. Shailla Cannie Principal SMVD College of Nursing and Dean Faculty of Nursing attended the meeting. Sh. Vinod Sharma Administrative Officer, Samir Vohra AR Academic Affairs and Amit Gupta SO Academic Affairs were also present in the meeting.