KOCHI: One of the first colleges established in the country is turning 100 this year. Union Christian College, Aluva, which was founded by four young graduates K C Chacko, C P Mathew, V M Ittiyera and A M Varkey in 1921, will begin its centenary celebrations in the coming month. According to Rev Thomas John, manager, UC College, the institution has heritage importance. “Over the years, the college has covered many milestones and is on the path of achieving more,” he said. The college boasts of famed alumni, primarily in the political arena.
According to Rev Thomas, the college has always been liberal. “An example would be the approach adopted by the management during the freedom struggle. While churches and foreign missionaries were suspicious about the nationalist movement, our college openly identified with it by inviting Mahatma Gandhi to the campus,” he added.
“Impressed by what he saw, Mahatma Gandhi wrote that he was ‘delighted with the ideal situation’. Rabindranath Tagore also visited the college in 1922. He laid the foundation stone of Tagore Hostel, the first men’s hostel named after him,” said the manager.
Taking a trip down memory lane, the Rev said, “The college was established in an old courthouse situated on 18 acres of land donated by Mulam Thirunal Rama Varma, the Maharaja of Travancore. It was a rare and united endeavour of individuals from various Christian denominations who otherwise never saw eye to eye.”
Starting line
Affiliated to the then Madras University, the college began with 63 students enrolled in the junior intermediate class group III. “Today we have become a premier higher educational institution with more than 2,200 students enrolled in 14 graduate and 14 postgraduate courses in diverse disciplines. Eight of its departments have been recognised by MG University as research centres. Currently, 120 research scholars are working in the aforementioned centres,” he said.
According to him, the college was one of the two institutions that went in for the first cycle of NAAC accreditation in 1999 and received a five-star accreditation. “We also completed the fourth cycle of accreditation in 2017 with an A grade,” said Rev Thomas.
Alumni speak
According to Tiju Thomas, Commissioner (Audit) Central GST & Central Excise, Kerala, the campus has played an enormous role in his stature. “I was raised in the culture and ethos of Union Christian College. I did my pre-degree in 1988-90 from the college and lived in the Principal’s quarters for five years, the tenure during which my father was the principal of the college,” he said.
“All the departments were exceptionally good. There were times when more than 50 per cent of the Indian women’s hockey team was constituted by UC College ( because of the sports hostel). The cheer and enthusiasm of the annual basketball tournament still reverberate in my ears,” said Tiju. Pramod Krishnan, chief conservator of forest, Forest Department, feels the college campus is ideally one that propounds romantic realism. It moulded the students into responsible citizens,” he said. It also helped the students gain a political outlook, he added.
The college counts an array of leaders, statesmen, artists, writers, teachers and other eminent persons among its alumni. Paravur T K Narayana Pillai (first chief minister of Travancore-Cochin), M P Manmadhan (Gandhian and Sarvodaya leader), Philipose Mar Chrysostom Mar Thoma Valiya Metropolitan, C M Stephen (former union minister), P C Alexander (former Governor of Meghalaya), Nitya Chaitanya Yati (philosopher and writer), P Govinda Pillai, P K Vasudevan Nair (ninth Chief Minister of Kerala), Varkala Radhakrishnan (former speaker of Kerala Assembly), Malayattoor Ramakrishnan (writer), Babu Paul and Lijo Jose Pellissery (filmmaker), to name a few.