Madras univ VC search panel to recommend three names today

Madras univ VC search panel to recommend three names today

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

Chennai: 29.07.2020

The race for the post of Madras University vicechancellor intensified further as the search panel interviewed 12 shortlisted candidates on Tuesday. The panel is expected to recommend three names to the governor-chancellor on Wednesday.

The candidates’ list included two former registrars, eminent researchers and senior professors from various universities.

The interview took place at the Tamil Nadu Open University in Chennai. While search panel members P Maruthamuthu, former VC of Madurai Kamaraj University and P Ramasamy, former VC of Alagappa University, were present in person for the interview, the convener of the panel and Jawaharlal Nehru University vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar interviewed the candidates through video-conference.

The interview was conducted in three batches. “The committee members gave ten minutes time for introduction and asked questions related to the expertise of the candidates and academic experience,” one of the candidates who attended the interview said. For each candidate, the interview lasted for around thirty minutes.

From Madras University, four retired professors -- Thangam Menon, N Raaman, K Murugesan and R Sahadevan attended the interview while four professors from Anna University including former registrars S Ganesan and J Kumar were also interviewed. The other two professors from the technical university are S Gowri and Usha Natesan.

Thenmozhi M from IIT Madras, V Ramakrishnan, former director of IISER, Thiruvananthapuram and N Thajuddin from Bharathidasan University and M G Sethuraman from The Gandhigram Rural Institute also attended the interview. In total, 177 professors applied for the post. The panel shortlisted 43 candidates based on age, experience and fluency in Tamil. Of the 43, the panel called 12 candidates for the interview.