CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi on Wednesday appointed vice-chancellors (V-Cs) to three State universities. This comes even as the Bills passed by the TN government seeking to empower itself to appoint V-Cs to 13 State varsities, including these three, are awaiting the Governor’s assent.
The Governor, who is Chancellor of State-run universities, appointed T Arumugam as V-C of Vellore-based Thiruvalluvar University, G Ravi as V-C of Alagappa university at Karaikudi and N Chandrasekar as V-C of Manonmaniam Sundaranar University (MSU) at Tirunelveli, said a Raj Bhavan statement. Officials at the higher education department could not be reached for comment on whether these appointments were made in consultation with the State government.
The appointments are for a period of three years with effect from the date of assumption of office by the appointees. The three new V-Cs have decades of teaching, research and administrative experience. Chandrasekar, who has 35 years of teaching experience, was earlier the dean of research at MSU. Ravi, who has 27 years of teaching experience, has held various administrative positions at Alagappa University while Arumugam is currently serving as the head of horticulture department at the Agricultural College Research Institute in Killikulam.
In April, the Bills were passed in the TN Assembly seeking to replace the Governor as Chancellor of State-run universities with the Chief Minister to ensure that the State government can appoint V-Cs for these varsities.
‘Univ admin affected’
Introducing the Bills, CM MK Stalin had said there had been a trend of the Governor appointing V-Cs without consulting State govt. He said inability of the govt to appoint V-Cs for varsities in its control had led to confusion & affected admin