St Xavier’s College helds a Press Conference on the eve of Convocation & Valedictory 2020

News Correspondent, abptakmaa, Kolkata, 8th Jan 2020 : The most prestigious and heritage college with many nostalgic moments in their history helds a press conference on the eve on Convocation and Valedictory 2020 by Rev. Fr. (Dr.) Dominic Savio, SJ, Principal, St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata on 7th January 2020. He stated as follows

1. Convocation, Valedictory & Nihil Ultra Award: The 13^th Convocation and Valedictory of St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata will be held on 16 January 2020, which is the 160^th Foundation Day of the Institution. H.E. Shri Jagdeep Dhankar, Hon’ble Governor of West Bengal, will be the Chief Guest and will deliver the Convocation Address. Prof. Ashis Banerjee, Former Vice Chancellor, Calcutta University, will be awarded with the most prestigious Nihil Ultra Award for his contribution in Higher Education. The Nihil Ultra Award is the highest Award given by St. Xavier’s College (Autonomous) Kolkata to someone as a token of recognition of his/her contribution to the overall development in the field of Higher Education. 290 number of students will get their Masters degree and 1980 students will be graduated in this year’s convocation.

• Xavotsav-2020: It is one of the biggest Inter College Festivals, where students from almost 50 colleges from different parts of the country and abroad will participate. It will take place on 22 to 24 January 2020 at the College. 

• Beyond Barriers-20: It is the biggest Musical Extravaganza organized every year by the St. Xavier’s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association.  The 20^th episode of this will be held on 26 January 2020 evening at the College grounds. The Artists are Vishal and Shekhar.

• Bhasha Divas: The International Day of Mother Language is observed in a grand manner by the College. The programme known as “Sanyog”, organized by the St. Xavier’s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association in collaboration with the Bengali Literary Society of the College. It will begin with the lighting of the torch at the foot of the Martyrs Column in Dhaka University by the Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of the Dhaka University and the flame moves to various Universities in Bangladesh including Jehangirnagar University and University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh. After it comes to Indian Territory it will go to different Jesuit Universities and Colleges in different parts of the country like St. Joseph’s College, Trichi, and others. It culminates on the International Mother Language Day with a procession from the College Hostel at AJC Bose Road to the College campus, where the staff, students and Alumni/ae participate. The torch will be received by the Father Principal at the College and placed at the specially erected Martyrs Column.   

• Incubation Centre: The College is contemplating to set up an Incubation Centre of its own for the Current and Passing Out Students as well as Alumni/ae. It will function as per guidelines of the Dept. of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, which encourages academic institutions to set up such Centres, although it will have support from Other Govt. Departments as well. The prime objective of the proposed Centre will be to create new entrepreneurs by giving them the required knowledge and skill, tie up with Govt. agencies and banks for provision of their required seed capital and even angel investors to launch a successful startup business. While the Science Departments of the College will be able to provide the required technology and share their research outcomes, the Commerce and Management Departments will be able to guide them with contemporary business techniques. The successful Business personalities from the Alumni/ae can also be of great support. Hence, the College can have a successful Incubator and will be able to help its students even after they pass out from their regular courses by hand holding them towards a successful business career.

• Health & Wellness Centre: All work and no play make Jack a dull boy. Yes, after having taken all efforts for academic excellence, the College is going to set up a centre where students can maintain their fitness habits. Apart from Indoor and Outdoor games where all students can participate, this arrangement will give opportunities to all students in the campus itself to do their fitness practice. Apart from facilities of fitness there will also be Lectures on good Life Style including Spirituality.

• St. Xavier’s College Kolkata to start M. Sc. In Economics and M.A. in Sociology & Ph. D. in Computer Sc.: After havingstartedM.A. in English, Political Sc. in the main campus and M.A. in Bengali in Raghabpur Rural Campus, now the College is going to start M. Sc. in Economics and M.A. in Sociology in the main campus from the coming Academic Year commencing from this year. The Education department of the College will also start M. Ed and four year Integrated Masters Programme in Education from the coming Academic year. Ph. D programmes are being run successfully in Physics, Commerce, Micro Biology, Bio Technology, Environmental Science, and Ph.D programme in Computer Science is about to start.

• New State of the Art Finance Laboratory: The new Finance Laboratory, first of its kind in any college in the country, has become operational with its live link with various stock and money markets and the required state of the art and latest software have also been procured to monitor live market fluctuations and analyzing them.  It is a Research Laboratory for the students with Finance specialization. It is also used by the faculties and researchers in the areas of Accounting & Finance. It has now access to all the major data base on finance and economics. Data bases like Prowess, Capital Line, India Stat, Bloomberg, etc, are already available in the new Finance lab. This will also help in training in Statistics, Operational Research and allied areas.

• Career Oriented Courses: Under the aegis of the Career Oriented Programmes (COP), A PG Diploma Course on Machine Learning & Artificial Intelligence is starting from this month and the admission process has already begun.

1. Raghabpur Campus: The second academic building is likely to be ready which will cater to greater number of rural students, as number of students are increasing every year. There are around 700 students, of whom 65% are girls, in this campus and all of them come from rural background. Students of this campus are especially groomed in Soft Skills, especially in Spoken English. Career Counselling advises are also organised not only for the students but also for their parents so that the students can choose the career properly. A visible change has taken place in around the area after the campus has come into being as number of child marriages among the girls has drastically been reduced. The College is contemplating to have more Career oriented Courses in this campus, so that youth of the area are placed in good jobs.

1. International Collaborations: With two new MOUs being signedwith University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh as part of Foreign Collaborations and also with West Bengal State University as part of In country collaboration, the Faculty and Students Exchange Programmes of the College continue with Fordam University, New York, USA, State University of New York, USA, College of St. Benedict, St. John’s University, Minessota, USA, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, , Sophia University, Japan, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, Macquari University, Sydney, Australia. University of Namur, Belgium, College of Media Studies & Culture, Torun, Poland.