Amoolya Rajappa recounts Christ University’s achievements on its golden jubilee 

The green canopied walkway at Christ University’s main campus on Hosur Road is brimming with students hurrying to attend their classes. Established as Christ College in 1969 with just 350 pupils and 18 faculty members, the varsity today caters to a whopping 21,000 students from India and abroad.

Known for its academic rigour and discipline, the university offers 49 undergraduate, 48 postgraduate, 16 MPhil and 20 PhD programmes in disciplines like Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Commerce, Management, Engineering, Education, Law and Architecture.

However, its journey has not been an easy one.

Established in line with the vision of St Kuriakose Elias Chavara, an educationalist and social reformer of the 19th century, the university is administered and managed by the catholic priests of the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) congregation.

An academician for the last three decades, Dr Fr Abraham V Mani, the present Vice-chancellor reminisces coming to Bengaluru as a young philosophy student in 1978. “I was impressed when I saw the architecture of block 1. It was a spacious, green campus that was well-known for its spring time cultural fests. Apart from block 1, we had a small bank building and another one which housed the principal’s office,” Fr Abraham says.

There were two noticeable things  — the absence of two main features that according to him, characterise the development of an educational institute: discipline and attendance.

He noted how attendance was considered seriously in his previous institute despite a staggering number of students involving themselves in active politics. Hence, one of the initial challenges for the early management of Christ College was introducing compulsory attendance in the year in 1989.

“Often it was met with resistance from students, but we took them into confidence. We introduced computerisation in the subsequent years, which led to better attendance monitoring and academic discipline,” says Fr Abraham.

The late 1980s also marked another significant change, the introduction of self-financing courses.

The Christ College to come up with innovative degree programmes in electronics — Commerce, Accountancy, Math and Statistics (CAMS) and Computer Science.

“In addition we could invest better in development activities and come with up with various other campuses,” he tells you. Moreover, self-financing courses also paved way for the varsity to hire new faculty members who were rewarded with UGC standard salaries.

Christ College became the first private educational institute from Karnataka to be accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) in the year 1998. This was followed by subsequent accreditations in the year 2004 and 2016. At present, the institution has Grade A in the 4-point scale of the NAAC grading system.

The proudest accomplishment came in 2008 when the Ministry of Human Resource  Development declared the institution a Deemed to be University, under Section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956.

The university now has campuses in Kengeri and Banerghatta Road, Bengaluru. The varsity will also begin operations at two newly opened campuses in Lavassa, Pune and Ghaziabad, Delhi this academic year.

It would not be wrong to note that the university was one of the first institutes in South India to introduce imaginative undergraduate courses. From triple major degrees in interesting subject combinations to the latest courses in performing arts and western music.

These revolutionary courses can be attributed to the vision of Bishop Antony Kariyil, the third Principal of Christ College in 1989. Today, the university is the most sought after educational destination for many students from across India and other countries.

One of the reasons for the renowned legacy is the support of its dedicated staff. “Through our faculty development programme, we make sure our teaching staff continuously upgrade, adopt relevant pedagogical and research methods that are on par with global higher education practices,” Fr Abraham says for whom holistic education is a passion.

Also, the faculty training begins well before the academic year commences. Over sessions lasting about a fortnight, faculty from different departments receive training on various themes by resource persons.

The training also includes educational visits to other campuses, department wise discussions, syllabus updating, devising detailed course plans for every semester.

Then there are numerous international collaborations. Every year, the university hosts a number of students from different US universities under the University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC). It is the only university in India where students from USAC visit for a semester exchange programme.

At present, the varsity has active collaborations with over a hundred international universities across the US, UK, Europe, China, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka among others.

Fr Abraham who has recently became the VC plans to expand and enhance the research atmosphere at Christ University. But real challenge for the new VC however, is to sustain operations at off-center campuses across Bengaluru and other cities.

At present, the university has a ranking of 301-plus in The University Impact Rankings 2019 conducted by Times Higher Education. The varsity stands at 451-500 in the QS Asia University Rankings 2019. In the first ever released India University Ranking by QS, Christ University is ranked at 71-75.

Despite the challenges, the university has emerged as an esteemed educational hub owing to the choice of courses offered, quality of teaching, multicultural ethos and well-rounded exposure it offers its students.

As much as he cherishes the remarkable journey of 50 years, Fr Abraham wants the varsity to continue to strive and produce happy students who become ‘ethical leaders and conscious citizens’.