Xaviers plans campus revamp

Updated on: Wednesday, July 21, 2010

After becoming the state’s first autonomous college, St Xavier’s College is now planning to acquire university status. As a first step, the college will have to expand its campus so that new post-graduate and undergraduate courses can be added.

Its alumni association has now pledged to help bring about this expansion and towards this end, will organise its first international convention this weekend in Bangkok. A large number of former students are settled in the Thai capital and the alumni association has a chapter there, which will play host for the convention.

“We will formally ask Xaverians all over the world to unite and make this growth happen. The institution has undergone a metamorphosis and nothing short of university status will stop us now,” said principal Father Felix Raj.

Charting out the expansion path, Father Felix said: “We will first have to build two hostels for girls and boys on the property we have on AJC Bose Road. This will have 450 seats. When this is done, we will shift our existing hostel from the Park Street campus.

“This will open up 30,000 sq ft for academic use immediately. An additional floor of 10,000 sq ft will then be built on the existing hostel building. With 40,000 sq ft in hand, we should be able to house a total of 10 post-graduate departments and a large number of undergraduate sections. At the moment, we have just five PG departments and 16 UG departments, which is not enough for a university.”

Among the large contingent of alumni that will travel to Bangkok for the convention are city police chief Gautam Mohan Chakrabarti, percussionist Bickram Ghosh, tabla player Subhen Chatterjee, actor Arindam Seal and designer Agnimitra Paul, who has been included within the fold because she is wife of an alumnus. These celebrities will perform at the convention at Bangkok. “The police commissioner will give a special talk, Bickram and Subhen will both perform whereas Agnimitra will hold a special couture show. I am told Bangkok is looking forward to this meet,” Father Felix said.

Two paintings specially done by Wasim Kapoor will be auctioned to raise funds for the college. (TNN)

Xaviers plans campus revamp

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