TIRUPATI: A few professors and faculty members of Sri Padmavati Mahila University in Tirupati have not vacated their chambers despite months having passed after their tenures’ end, giving rise to accommodation concerns in the university.
Dusty nameplates of the professors who have overstayed their welcome continue to hang beside locked doors and the several honours and awards conferred on them occupy the rooms once allotted to them. A source told TNIE that university authorities have decided against breaking the locks, lest they be accused of theft by the professors.
“Generally, professors remove their awards and certificates from office and take them home after retirement, but a few have kept all their belongings in their chambers and locked them up,’’ a senior faculty member, not wishing to be named, said.Not just retired professors, faculty members who have been promoted or transferred too are not letting go of their old rooms.
“They occupy their new rooms as well as chambers allocated to them prior to promotion or transfer. This is causing space constrains and accommodation problems in the university,” the faculty member complained.
A former maths HoD, who had once served as Vice-Chancellor, retired months back, but hasn’t vacated her chambers, neither has a professor of the department of pharmacy. Other troublemakers include professors from the journalism and home science departments.
All attempts to persuade the faculty members to vacate their old accommodations to make way for additional classrooms have fallen on deaf ears, forcing different departments to share classrooms, thereby inconveniencing students and serving professors.
University registrar Prof M Mamatha said the retired professors would vacate their chambers soon and admitted that the university had not even served intimation notices to certain former teaching staff.
Several serving faculty members who have been left in the lurch had called for the locks on the rooms to be broken, but nothing has been done yet.