Visva-Bharati badly needs full-time VC, says officiating VC

Officiating Vice-Chancellor of Visva-Bharati university Prof Sabujkali Sen today said the institution, which had been functioning with Acting VCs for the past two years, badly needed a full-time one.

After Vice-Chancellor Sushanta Dattagupta was dismissed from the central university in February 2016, Prof Swapan Kumar Dutta became the officiating VC and Sen assumed the same charge on February 3 after his retirement.

"Visva-Bharati has been functioning under acting VCs for two years. It badly needs a full-time VC," Sen, also the seniormost director of the university, told PTI.

She said her job as the officiating VC is to ensure that the full time VC, whenever he or she is appointed, does not face a huge backlog of work.
 

"My term is not for long," she said without elaborating.

Sen, who was in the city to attend an Executive Council meeting of the university, said the meeting was held during the day to discuss ways to implement the 7th Pay Commission recommendations by March and the economic demands of casual employees.

The Director of Studies Educational Innovations and Rural Reconstruction of the university took over as the officiating VC on February 3 after the Ministry of Human Resource Development directed the authorities in this regard.

To a question if she would agree to become full-time VC, Sen said she had come to Visva-Bharati as a student in 1971 and "I am ready to do whatever I am asked to do."

About her plans to ensure that the sanctity of Visva- Bharati remained in sync with founder Rabindranath Tagore's vision, Sen said, "Our university cannot be an island and it is impacted by the events taking place all over the country and world."

"You cannot expect everyone to be imbibed by the vision of Tagore. But I am sure Visva-Bharati can never lose its character and identity," she said.