Heads of 11 academic chairs which were vacant since past few months has now been appointed at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). These appointments were made to build a body of research and to promote studies around the philosophy or thinking of eminent personalities or in a specialized subject.
The university administration had come under severe criticism in the past as on one hand, the SPPU has sent proposals to the University Grants Commission (UGC) asking for the establishment of new chairs, and on the other hand, the existing academic chairs with rich endowments have been lying vacant.
In the past three decades, at least 19 chairs have been instituted at the university in the name of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, Mahatma Phule, Lokshahir Anna Bhau Sathe, Sant Namdev, Sant Dnyandev, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, Sant Tukaram and others, which are assigned the task of promoting research and studies in various subjects related to the personality and his or her ideology.
Most of the chairs had been lying vacant since the administration was yet to decide the criteria for appointment to these chairs. But the issue seems to have been sorted out, with the SPPU administration announcing the names of 11 experts, appointed to head the 11 chairs at the university.