B'lore varsity seeks NRN's help to boost UVCE

BU Vice-Chancellor N Prabhu Dev wrote an open letter to Murthy on Thursday offering him the Chairmanship of the Board of Governors of the 94-year-old University Visvesvaraya College of Engineering (UVCE), the varsity’s constituent college. “It is great to see a statesman like you calling a spade a spade. When you comment, there surely will be some remedy that you are thinking about. UVCE can become a prestigious IIT much like the college in Roorkee has. For that, it needs a visionary like you,” Dev said in the letter.  

The V-C said that UVCE, with 24 postgraduate departments, can be better than the IITs and perhaps a benchmark in global technical education quality. Dev also admitted that infrastructure needed to be upgraded in some departments at UVCE. Requesting Murthy to accept the offer, the V-C said he was ready to relinquish the post of chairman of the Board of Governors of UVCE.

Dev requested Murthy to guide and transform UVCE into a technological institute of excellence in its centenary year in 2017. “I believe you have a very special role to play in promoting entrepreneurship in technology and management. A major problem in most Indian universities is that the syllabi are not industry-friendly,” Dev observed.

According to Dev, Murthy can help UVCE develop concepts such as text-free education, tech-savvy classrooms, ensured internships and vocational courses. “We expect you to be a role model for students and help teach them the importance of professionalism,” Dev concluded.