Appointment of DG Vaishnav principal revoked after plagiarism charges proved
Siddharth Prabhakar | TNN | Dec 16, 2017, 07:04 IST
CHENNAI: University of Madras has disapproved the appointment of professor T Santhanam as principal of D G Vaishnav College after proving a plagiarism charge against him.
The university's syndicate passed a unanimous resolution on Friday to revoke the appointment. Vice-chancellor P Duraisamy confirmed the resolution.
Santhanam is a professor of computer science and was appointed principal on September 28. Dr Regina Vincent, a resident of Korattur, had filed a complaint with the university vice-chancellor stating that Santhanam, in his PhD thesis 'The Validation of a Computer Simulation Model Using Spectral Analysis', had copied three chapters verbatim from a thesis published by a research scholar of Arizona State University.
The complaint letter was also sent to all media houses a month ago. University of Madras had awarded a PhD in computer science to Santhanam in 2001.
A subject expert committee constituted by the varsity found that there was a "high level of plagiarism" and the three chapters had been copied almost verbatim from the thesis of the American scholar. "By avoiding taking action against him we did not want to create an image of going slow on plagiarism. This is a serious issue," a top official of the university told TOI after the syndicate meeting.
Professors in the university said this was a good precedent and would send out a strong message to the academic community. "The thesis in question is 16 years old. Academics who have plagiarised works will now be worried," said a senior professor.
Senior faculty members of the varsity said there was no clear regulation to address the issue as the syndicate can only check if the appointment of the principal was done according to UGC regulations. But in Santhanam's case, since the degree based on which he had applied for the post was in dispute, the appointment could not be approved.
Welcoming the tough action, professor Gopalji Malviya, former head the department of defence studies of the university, said there were many other cases where PhD and M Phil degrees were fraudulently obtained. "There are many departments where shortcuts have been taken. Will the university investigate these," he asked.
TOI made multiple efforts to contact Santhanam but they proved to be futile.
Siddharth Prabhakar | TNN | Dec 16, 2017, 07:04 IST
CHENNAI: University of Madras has disapproved the appointment of professor T Santhanam as principal of D G Vaishnav College after proving a plagiarism charge against him.
The university's syndicate passed a unanimous resolution on Friday to revoke the appointment. Vice-chancellor P Duraisamy confirmed the resolution.
Santhanam is a professor of computer science and was appointed principal on September 28. Dr Regina Vincent, a resident of Korattur, had filed a complaint with the university vice-chancellor stating that Santhanam, in his PhD thesis 'The Validation of a Computer Simulation Model Using Spectral Analysis', had copied three chapters verbatim from a thesis published by a research scholar of Arizona State University.
The complaint letter was also sent to all media houses a month ago. University of Madras had awarded a PhD in computer science to Santhanam in 2001.
A subject expert committee constituted by the varsity found that there was a "high level of plagiarism" and the three chapters had been copied almost verbatim from the thesis of the American scholar. "By avoiding taking action against him we did not want to create an image of going slow on plagiarism. This is a serious issue," a top official of the university told TOI after the syndicate meeting.
Professors in the university said this was a good precedent and would send out a strong message to the academic community. "The thesis in question is 16 years old. Academics who have plagiarised works will now be worried," said a senior professor.
Senior faculty members of the varsity said there was no clear regulation to address the issue as the syndicate can only check if the appointment of the principal was done according to UGC regulations. But in Santhanam's case, since the degree based on which he had applied for the post was in dispute, the appointment could not be approved.
Welcoming the tough action, professor Gopalji Malviya, former head the department of defence studies of the university, said there were many other cases where PhD and M Phil degrees were fraudulently obtained. "There are many departments where shortcuts have been taken. Will the university investigate these," he asked.
TOI made multiple efforts to contact Santhanam but they proved to be futile.
No comments:
Post a Comment