Restructuring of AU faculties on the cards

ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY (AU) has drawn up an ambitious blueprint for the restructuring of its existing five faculties.

If all goes according to plan, the varsity will have a total of nine faculties in place of the existing five by 2011.

AU at present consists of five faculties namely the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Science, the Faculty of Commerce, the Faculty of Law and the Faculty of Medicine. Each Faculty consists of several departments catering to the needs of a large number of students.

However, university officials have now started feeling that these Faculties, with a long history of their own, have grown unwieldy and to some extent even unmanageable.

Their solution: Bifurcating the Faculties into smaller units to improve their functioning and help them organise the research and academic programmes in a more focused way.

According to the 'Vision Plan: 2006-11' prepared by the specially constituted Academic Committee for the purpose, the varsity will break up the Arts Faculty into three faculties— the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Fine Arts.

The participating departments in the Faculty of Humanities would be the departments of Arabic and Persian, English and Modern European Languages, Hindi and Modern Indian Languages, Philosophy, Sanskrit and Urdu.

The proposed Faculty of Social Science would consist of the departments of Ancient History, Culture and Archaeology, Anthropology, Defence and Strategic Studies (presently part of the Science Faculty), Economics (presently part of the Commerce Faculty), Education, Geography, Journalism, Medieval and Modern History, Political Science and Psychology.

The Faculty of Fine Arts would consist of the departments of Photography (presently part of the Science Faculty) Music and Performing Arts and Visual Arts.

Similarly, the plan is to divide the existing Science Faculty into three faculties including the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences, The Faculty of Technology and the Faculty of Health and Allied Sciences.

Post restructuring, the departments of Bio-Chemistry, Botany, Chemistry, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, Statistics, and Zoology would become part of the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences.

The proposed Faculty of Technology would comprise of the departments of Computer Science, Electronics and Communications, as well as the proposed Centre of Nanoscience and Technology.

In the same way, The Faculty of Health and Allied Sciences would consist of the departments of Home Science and Physical Education (currently part of the Arts Faculty).

New Departments would be added to all these faculties as and when they come
into existence.

Though, there is no plan yet to break-up the existing Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Law, the varsity proposes to rename its Faculty of Commerce as the Faculty of Commerce and Management Studies after the re-structuring.

The new Faculty would consist of two separate departments namely the Department of Commerce and the Department of Management Studies.

The department of Commerce would offer undergraduate and post-graduate courses as well as the doctoral programme in Commerce while the department of Management Studies would offer Masters course and doctoral programme in Business Administration.

It is also planned to introduce a Bachelors course in Business Administration in the proposed department of Management studies.

As per the plan, all management related courses offered by the university namely Master in Human Resources Development, the proposed Masters course in Management in Mobile Communications, diploma in Foreign Trade, and diploma in Tourism Management etc would be brought within the purview of the department of Management Studies.

It is also proposed that the faculty members of the departments, which run these courses, will serve as adjunct faculty in the department of Management Studies and that their assignments in the Management Department will be treated as part of their overall teaching load.