MISPLACED APPROVAL

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MISPLACED APPROVAL

Dr. Rajendra Pandian

Former Governing Council Member

It is heartwarming to note that all our American friends associated with the college— missionaries and others alike—without exception, have been lending their fullest support to the college in different ways and at different levels since the outbreak of the problem. Dr. Charles Ryerson, Emeritus President of the American College Endowment Fund wrote to the Bishop: “Any change [in the traditional management of the college] could force the trustees to re-evaluate their financial and moral support to the college” (saveamericancollege, April 23, 2008); Dr. Riesz, the President of the Trust has often repeated the idea: “Why does the CSI need to have control over this 129year old college?” (americancoll, May 24, 2012). 

Dr. Carl Jacobson, Executive Director of the Oberlin-Shansi Foundation also wrote (saveamericancollege, April 21, 2008) that such aggression on the institution (as orchestrated by the late Bishop Asir and his son-in law Dr. Davamani Christober, the then Bursar and the present Principal) might result in the “termination” of the “historic relationship” (April 21, 2008) between the Foundation and the college. Describing the violence on campus as a “total nightmare” (March 15, 2011) he urged everyone to act and “save the college’. His statements were timely, categorical, and honorable and perceived as the official stand of the Oberlin-Shansi Foundation on the American College issue. 

As the fight aggravated Oberlin-Shansi suspended the exchange program with the American college and subsequently we have seen no Oberlin Rep or Director on campus these years.  We will remember with gratitude and admiration the pro-college stand taken by our overseas associates such as the Board of Trustees and the Oberlin –Shansi Foundation; I even opined once that our governments and law courts should get to know the sentiments from these quarters which might help us consolidate the larger view in favor of the college. Even amid the unprecedented scale of thuggery and campus-violence unleashed by the very same ‘administration’ we remain resolute thanks to the empathy and support that our friends have extended to the college through fitting words and timely deeds.  

Against that backdrop, the visit of the Chair and the ED of the Oberlin Shansi foundation to our campus gains importance.  I knew it only as lecture in SCILET delivered by Dr. Anuradha Needham, a professor from Oberlin. And I learn that  it entailed all forms of courtesy: the guests sharing the dais with the Principal; visiting him in his office; partying in the evening with the ‘administrators’ and select Oberlin Fellows indicating signs of the possible revival of exchange. While welcoming the Shansi friends in our midst [and thanking them for the visit] we must also admit that we are surprised at the timing of their trip. This may accord enormous approval on the wrong people; strengthen their claim to legitimacy and thereby undermine the struggle to restore the college—I’m afraid!

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P.G. PHYSICS ALUMNI MEET IN U.S. (AND NOT IN AMERICAN COLLEGE!!??)

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NEWS IN THE HINDU



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Golden jubilee celebration in the U.S.

Alumni meet in U.S.

 

The Postgraduate Physics Department of American College here turned 50 on Saturday and a few alumni of the department living in the United States gathered in Columbia, Maryland, to celebrate the occasion, according to a communiqué issued here on Monday.

The communiqué stated that Professor Richard P.Riesz, founder and first Head of the Department, now living in Pleasant Hill, Tennessee, attended the celebrations which started with lunch at an Indian restaurant followed by a felicitation meeting at a hall in the county library. “Prof. Riesz’s service and impact on students’ lives were recalled with emotional intensity. He received the first copy of a golden jubilee souvenir that contained pictures and articles on the beginning days and a collection of reminiscences by old students and the faculty of the department,” it added.

— Special Correspondent

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http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/golden-jubilee-celebration-in-the-us/article4919582.ece
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Got a mail from Prof. V.Srinivasan about the function which was then planned to be conducted in our college campus. But his efforts did not succeed as the present principal and his officers made some not-so-interesting-proposals-and-demands.

Arulraj Navamoni then sent me a mail asking for some photographs of the campus for making a memento to Prof. Riesz - a coffe-table book. To have some recent photos I went with one of my friends, Ravi on an early morning to the campus. Luckily when I was closing the camera after taking the final picture of James Hall, the ground superintendent came to me asking me to stop taking pictures - an 'order' from principal.  

Get permission to take photos, he said.. An 'order' from the 'saviours' of the college!!!

So goes the story ....!


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NON CONSUMPTUS

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NON CONSUMPTUS

RAJENDRA PANDIAN

Former Governing Council Member

At last the new bishop for the CSI-DM & R has arrived. So, The Rt.Rev.Joseph becomes the Bishop-Chairman of our Governing Council.  We congratulate him and wish him a very successful and meaningful term in office. However, it was weird to see an advertisement in the dailies greeting the new bishop on behalf of the Principal, Staff, and Students of the American college. Besides, regular class work was suspended after 10 am Friday, the day of his consecration in the Cathedral. This was more bizarre, I should say, as we normally suspend classes like that only after a condolence meeting, as the one we had today,  as a mark of respect to the memory of the departed. 

Probably our administrators think these things will substantiate the intermittent and half-confident claim they make that this is a CSI institution. They also try to buttress this claim by cooking up sporadic and false evidences through recently printed materials. Thus, the acts mentioned above can be read in sequence to their organized fraudulence and pretensions to present the American College like a CSI institution. We believe that the new Bishop is aware of these trickeries and acts with conscience and fear of God. 

The college which is on the ‘auto-pilot’ mode, as a senior professor commented, is functioning under the headship of one with paper credentials to be the Principal—leave alone the legal disputes relating even to that. The present quiet manifests the indifference, fear, and resignation instilled in many of us. And of course opportunism also is a vigorously practiced value that pays off between concrete benefits and abstract principles. I have nothing to say on it except that this movement has suffered from large scale defections and betrayals. Unshaken by that, Dr.Anbudurai is bent on securing the jobs and seniority of our management staff—both teaching and non-teaching—and getting their arrears at the earliest. 

May be this is time (even for the traditional administration once restored) to see all the management staff alike - whether appointed by Dr.Chinnaraj Joseph or Dr. Davamani Christober - in the larger interest of the college. This may not apply to anyone with a record of involvement in violence though. I register this as my personal opinion. I also believe, both we and they came to this college to try our fortunes and they are entitled to the same dignity and fair consideration as we are. However, service seniority is something that an employee has hard earned over years and no administration has the right to meddle with it. Any “manipulation of register”—as rightly phrased by Prof. Suryakumar before we staged a walk out from a faculty meeting—is illegal, unacceptable and needs to be reversed by the incumbents at once. And also, “junior getting more pay” should be treated as a serious anomaly even with the management staff and needs immediate redress. 

If fixing the management-staff issue is our most immediate goal, retrieving the college and restoring the traditional administration is the ultimate. By ‘traditional administration’ I mean the administration backed by the legitimate Governing Council and by “legitimate Governing Council” I mean the council registered by the founders in 1934 and marked by its inimitable “continuity “ since then—unlike the one conjured up 5 years ago by the late Bishop’s necromantic  skills.  As the task of identifying the legitimate council is with the honorable court we can hope that wisdom will prevail on the new bishop that he waits for the court verdict and abstains from presiding over anything non-existent.

The progress that we make in the struggle—particularly on the legal front— before the retirement of Dr. Anbudurai in January 2014 is crucial and has to be substantial; the follow up stands to be worked out by the rest. We need not get discouraged as we appear to have dwindled into nothing more than a “like minded few”. In fact, Prof. Suryakumar’s election to the Governing Council; Dr. Premsingh and Prof. Joel’s election to the Senatus and the number of votes won by other contestants on our panel who ran for various offices in the recent faculty elections only reveal that we are not ‘a few’ but ‘many’. These elections declare the undying democratic spirit of our faculty and their unchanging love for the college. What has happened to this institution is an aberration which cannot last long. Eventually, the American College with its proper course should, and will, be restored—at any cost. 

I, rather fanatically, believe that the outcome of the struggle has already been revealed to us in the form of our motto: Purificatus Non Consumptus!

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