Convocation set to go down in history

TOI 

Kolhapur: The 52nd convocation ceremony of the Shivaji University, Kolhapur (SUK), to be held on Saturday, will witness the most degrees being handed out to engineering graduates this year.

According to an SUK report, with 11,832 degrees, engineering and technology graduates are topping the charts among the total 52,160 graduates, who will receive degree certificates this year. Students from the commerce faculty will be following second with 11,287 degrees. This is followed by the science stream with 9,224 degrees.

Mahesh Kakade, the controller of examinations (CoE), SUK said that this is the highest number of conferred degrees recorded in the history of the university. Of the total degrees, 24,360 will be conferred in presence, while 27,800 will sent to the students via courier. Apart from this, as many as 301 PhD and MPhil scholars too will also be awarded their degrees during the event.

The Institute of chemical technology (ICT) vice-chancellor and Padmashri awardee G D Yadav will be the chief guest at the event. Yadav was selected for the award earlier last month.

"We will confer degrees to 26,071 male candidates. In all, 26,089 female students will get their degrees this convocation ceremony," he said.

According to a university official, the main event for the convocation ceremony will take place at the Lokkala kendra on the university campus. The distribution of degrees will begin as early as 7.30am till 12.30pm and later from 5pm to 6pm to manage the crowd at exam center 2 in the campus. The main event, according to the officials, will begin at 1.30pm at the university campus.

The officials added that the whole event will be webcast on the university website at www.unishivaji.ac.in.

For the proper management of crowd, a team of volunteers has been formed to handle the crowd, which is estimated at more than 50,000 people. The necessary security management is the top priority for the university. Entry will be allowed from the university's gate number two for the general public, while VIPs can enter from gate number one.

During the main event Priyanka Patil, a student of MA English will be conferred with the coveted president's medal for her overall excellence in the sports, cultural activities, academics and community services during the academic year 2014-15.

The SUK started operations in 1962 with 34 affiliated colleges and around 14,000 students with five postgraduate departments on campus. Today, the number of affiliated colleges has gone up to 282 and the student strength up to three lakh with 40 postgraduate departments on campus. The university imparts education in 10 major faculties of arts, social science, commerce, education, fine arts, law, medicine, science, ayurvedic medicine, engineering and technology.