Moily promises to upgrade UVCE

Distinguished alumni of the 93-year-old college, M R Srinivasan and Vasudev Aatre, have been invited to discuss the matter with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said Moily.

The Minister was addressing the gathering on the second day of the UVCE Mega Reunion at the Palace Grounds. "Given UVCE's reputation as one of the oldest engineering colleges in India, with an illustrious list of alumni, the Centre will do all it can to upgrade it into a truly global institute," Moily said.

Earlier, Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor N Prabhu Dev stressed the need for doing a lot more to cement Bangalore's reputation as a hub of science and technological education. He also requested the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) to allot 1,000 acres of greenfield land to set up various institutes of technological education.

Urging the UVCE alumni to develop concepts like textbook-free education, tech-savvy classrooms, ensured internships and vocational courses, Dev said that the BU vision document would encourage teachers to engage students in fruitful research. Students, in turn, would be asked to evaluate the teachers so that the latter can improve their teaching techniques.

He also said that curriculum reforms under the vision document would be put in place in the next three months, but changes in infrastructure might happen only in the next two years. The V-C also asked the UVCE alumni to support the college as visiting professors, develop its infrastructure in terms of high-end labs and libraries and provide placements for graduates in their firms.

On the occasion, distinguished alumnus awards were conferred on eight former students.

They are:

K C Reddy, former Advisor to the Chief Minister; Roddam Narasimha, former Director of the National Aeronautics Laboratory; Vasudev K Aatre, former Scientific Advisor to the Defence Minister; S Rame Gowda and R Natarajan, former chairmen of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE); S S Iyengar, Chaired Professor and Chairman of the Computer Science Department, Louisiana State University; Ashok Kumar C Manoli, Principal Secretary to the Departments of IT, BT and Science and Technology and Mano Murthy, music director.