Christ University

CHRIST (Deemed to be University) was born out of the educational vision of St. Kuriakose Elias Chavara, an educationalist and social reformer of the nineteenth century in South India.[7] Chavara founded the first indigenous Catholic congregation Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) in 1831, which administers CHRIST (Deemed to be University).[7] Established in 1969 as Christ College, the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India conferred Autonomy to the Christ College in 2004[8] and identified it as an institution with Potential for Excellence in 2006.[9] In 2008 under section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India, declared the institution a Deemed to be University, in the name and style of 'Christ University'. Later in 2018, upon the direction of Supreme Court of India, the word 'University' was removed thus making it Christ (Deemed to be University).[10] Christ was one of the first institutions in India to be accredited in 1998 by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), and subsequently in 2004 and 2016 had been awarded Grade 'A' on 4-point scale.[11]

CHRIST (Deemed to be University) during Christmas

Main campus is spread over 25 acres (10 ha) and is part of the 100-acre (40 ha) Dharmaram College Campus in the central part of Bangalore city. It is on the extension of Hosur Road (NH 7) opposite the Bangalore Dairy Circle Flyover. The city campus is close to residential localities such as BTM Layout, a residential and commercial area, Koramangala, another large neighborhood and Jayanagar, one of the largest residential neighborhoods in Bangalore. In 2009, CHRIST (Deemed to be University) opened a campus spread over 75 acres at Kengeri on the Bangalore-Mysore highway SH 17 which houses the Faculty of Engineering, PU Residential college, the Institute of Management which offers MBA programmes as well as College of Architecture Which was started officially from 2017.[12] CHRIST (Deemed to be University) also has a campus in Hulimavu on Bannerghatta Road, inaugurated in May 2016.[13] Apart from these campuses, Christ has two more campuses, in Lavasa, Pune which was established in the year 2007 [14] and in Delhi NCR established in the year 2013.[15]

The campuses are zero waste campus and recycle their wet waste and used paper.[16]

The University is managed by the CHRIST (Deemed to be University) Trust, which in turn is organized by the CMI congregation, under the Syro Malabar Major Archiepiscopal Church. The Chancellor of the university is always the rector of the Dharmaram Pontifical Seminary.[17] Thus, by assuming the rector's seat, he also assumes the position of the Chancellor. Under him comes the Vice Chancellor, who takes all the decisions which can affect day-to-day administrative matters. The present Vice Chancellor is Dr Fr Abraham Vettiyankal Mani, who holds a doctorate from Bangalore University and an American masters in Computer Science. Though the vice chancellor's position is usually assumed by a priest from the congregation, the person appointed thus has all the qualifications and academic experiences required by the UGC.[18] Under the vice chancellor comes the registrar, currently, Dr Anil Joseph Pinto. The financial matters of the university are managed by a Chief Finance Officer. Various deaneries and departments are headed and represented by deans and department heads.

The University has over 18,000 students and more than 800 faculty members.[19][20][21] It has a foreign student community of about 700 from 58 nationalities.[22] The university offers nationally and internationally recognised undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes.

Undergraduate Programmes

BGR Campus Front view

The university offers 46 undergraduate programmes in humanities, social sciences, science, commerce and management, education, law and engineering. Undergraduate programmes are of three-year duration except in the case of Bachelor of Education (BEd, two years), Bachelor of Hotel Management (BHM, four years), Bachelor of Laws (LLB, five years), Bachelor of Technology (BTech, four years) and an integrated BTech/MTech or MBA (five years). Except for Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Bachelor of Commerce (BCom), Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Bachelor of Science (BSc) programmes follow a Triple Major system.

Wikipedia in the undergraduate programme

Wikipedia workshop for second language students

The institution entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore to make article writing on Wikipedia a core exercise for the continuous internal assessment of its 1600 undergraduate students in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Sanskrit and Urdu.[28] The Hindi and Kannada articles may be found at collection of Hindi articles and collection of Kannada articles.

On 10 January 2011, Christ Junior College, Bangalore, under ensemble director Vineeth Vincent, in an event titled 'Can You Say Beat Box?' created the largest human beatbox ensemble in the Limca Book of Records with 2136 participants.[31][32][33][34] According to the Guinness World Records, the previous record for the largest human beatbox ensemble involved 1,246 participants and was achieved by Vineeth Vincent and Christ University (India) in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, on 5 February 2011.[35] This record was broken by Shlomo on 14 November 2011 with 2,081 participants.[36] The record was broken by Booking.com on 10 December 2013 with 4695 participants.[37]

Christ University was involved in a controversy surrounding the granting of deemed university status. According to norms, before the status is granted, the affiliating university (Bangalore University in this case) and the State Government are required to submit a "No-Objection Certificate" (NoC) to the University Grants Commission (UGC). The state government refused to grant the request for an NoC. The UGC relied on the NoC from Bangalore University and the NoC from the state government was not a requirement and recommended university status to the institution. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India based on the UGC recommendation granted the University status.[38] The institute is now a deemed to be university.[39][40][41][42][43]

• List of deemed universities
• Dharmaram College
• Bangalore

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• Official website