Christ University


Christ , is a deemed to be university in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. Founded in 1969 as an autonomous college, on 22 July 2008 it was declared as an institution deemed to be university under section 3 of UGC Act 1956 by the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India. The University is under the management of the priests of the Catholic religious order, Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, part of Syro Malabar Major Archiepiscopal Church. The University has over 18,000 students and more than 800 faculty members. In 2016, the University was accredited by National Assessment and Accreditation Council with A Grade. In 2017 India Today-Nielsen survey, CHRIST is ranked among the top private universities in India. The university offers nationally and internationally recognised undergraduate, postgraduate and research programmes in academic disciplines in Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, Law, Engineering, Business Administration, Commerce, and Management. It offers professional courses in fields including Business Management, Computer Application, Hotel Management, Mass Communication, Social Work, Engineering and Tourism. It has a foreign student community of about 700 from 58 nationalities.

History

CHRIST was born out of the educational vision of St. Kuriakose Elias Chavara, an educationalist and social reformer of the nineteenth century in South India. He initiated school education for the deprived and marginalised classes in the Southern part of the country. He founded the first indigenous Catholic congregation Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, in 1831 which administers CHRIST. Established in 1969 as Christ College, the University Grants Commission of India conferred Autonomy to the Christ College in 2004 and identified it as an institution with Potential for Excellence in 2006. In 2008 under section 3 of the UGC Act, 1956, the Ministry of Human Resource Development of the Government of India, declared the institution a Deemed to be University, in the name and style of CHRIST. One of the first institutions in India to be accredited in 1998 by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, and subsequently in 2004 and 2016, CHRIST has been awarded Grade 'A' on 4-point scale.
The multi-disciplinary university, which focuses on teaching, research and service, offers Bachelors to Doctoral programmes in Humanities, Social Sciences, Commerce, Management, Engineering, Education and Law to over 18000 students.

Campus

The campus is a zero waste campus and recycles its wet waste and used paper. Students are provided with smart cards which serve as debit cards for transactions such as fee payments and library dues. The card is issued by the South Indian Bank The main campus is spread over and is part of the Dharmaram College Campus in the central part of Bangalore city. It is on the extension of Hosur Road opposite the Bangalore Dairy Circle Flyover. The city campus is close to residential localities such as BTM Layout, a residential and commercial area, Koramangala, another large neighborhood and Jayanagar, one of the largest residential neighborhoods in Bangalore. In 2009, CHRIST opened a campus spread over 75 acres at Kengeri on the Bangalore-Mysore highway SH 17 which houses the Faculty of Engineering, PU Residential college, the Institute of Management which offers MBA programmes as well as College of Architecture Which was started officially from 2017.
CHRIST also has a campus in Hulimavu on Bannerghatta Road, inaugurated in May 2016. IIM, Bangalore, The Royal Meenakshi Mall and the Bannerghatta National Park are nearby. A boys' hostel, an auditorium that seats 1500, a mini auditorium that seats 200 and four eateries are on campus.
The campus offers undergraduate honours and triple major degree programmes in Economics, Psychology, English, Journalism, Business Administration, Political Science, Media Studies and a bachelors and masters programme in tourism and travel management.
Apart from these campuses, Christ has two more campuses, in Lavasa, Pune which was established in the year 2007 and in Delhi NCR established in the year 2013.

Organization and administration

The university has around 18,000 students from all over India and the world, and around 800+ faculty members. The University is managed by the CHRIST Trust, which in turn is organized and funded by the CMI congregation, under the Syro Malabar Major Archiepiscopal Church. The Chancellor of the university is always the rector of the Dharmaram Pontifical Seminary. Thus, by assuming the rector's seat, he also assumes the position of the Chancellor. Under him comes the Vice Chancellor, who takes all the decisions which can affect day-to-day administrative matters. The present Vice Chancellor is Dr Fr Abraham Vettiyankal Mani, who holds a doctorate from Bangalore University and an American masters in Computer Science. Though the vice chancellor's position is usually assumed by a priest from the congregation, the person appointed thus has all the qualifications and academic experiences required by the UGC. Under the vice chancellor comes the registrar: currently, Dr Anil Pinto. The financial matters of the university are managed by a Chief Finance Officer. Various deaneries and departments are headed and represented by deans and department heads.

Academics

CHRIST offers certificate, diploma, undergraduate, postgraduate and research programs in academic disciplines classified under the Schools of Law, Education, Sciences, Social Sciences & Languages, Commerce & Management and Engineering. In 2005, the formerly known Christ College was the first institution in South India to be re-accredited with A by NAAC.

Undergraduate Programmes

The university offers 46 undergraduate programmes in humanities, social sciences, science, commerce and management, education, Law and engineering. Undergraduate programmes are of three-year duration except in the case of Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Hotel Management, Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Technology and an integrated BTech/MTech or MBA. Except for Bachelor of Business Administration, Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science programmes follow a Triple Major system.
;Wikipedia in the undergraduate programme
The institution entered into a memorandum of understanding with the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India to make article writing on Wikipedia a core exercise for the continuous internal assessment of its 1600 undergraduate students in Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Sanskrit and Urdu. The Hindi and Kannada articles may be found at :hi:विकिपीडिया:विकिपरियोजना क्राइस्ट विश्वविद्यालय|collection of Hindi articles and :kn:ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ:ಯೋಜನೆ/ಕ್ರೈಸ್ಟ್ ವಿಶ್ವವಿದ್ಯಾಲಯ ವಿಕಿಪೀಡಿಯ ಶಿಕ್ಷಣ ಯೋಜನೆ|collection of Kannada articles.

Post-Graduate Programmes

The University offers 47 masters, 17 Master of Philosophy and 21 PhD degree programmes in Humanities, Social Sciences, Science, Law, Education, commerce and management, and Engineering. Masters programmes are of two years duration, except for Master of Computer Science and Master of Law which are three years and one-year duration, respectively.

Placements

In 2018, 1672 students were placed. A total of 131 organizations from different sectors have come to Christ University for placements.

Publications

The university has published over 220 books in Kannada, through Kannada Sangha, a non-profit organisation of the university promoting Kannada around the world and publishes six peer reviewed journals: To make wider the base advance, a full-fledged Centre for Publications was started in the year 2001. Two quarterly journals- Artha-Journal of Social Sciences and Mapana-Journal of Sciences and four biannual journals-Ushus-Journals of Business Management, Tatva-Journal of Philosophy, Atna-Journal of Tourism Studies and CULJ-CHRIST Law Journal.
Some of the notable works are:
The University is a member of the Association of Indian Universities and
International Federation of Catholic Universities

Notable alumni

On 10 January 2011, Christ Junior College, Bangalore, under ensemble director Vineeth Vincent, in an event titled 'Can You Say Beat Box?' created the largest human beatbox ensemble in the Limca Book of Records with 2136 participants.
According to the Guinness World Records, the previous record for the largest human beatbox ensemble involved 1,246 participants and was achieved by Vineeth Vincent and Christ University in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, on 5 February 2011. This record was broken by Shlomo on 14 November 2011 with 2,081 participants.
The record was broken by Booking.com on 10 December 2013 with 4695 participants.

Controversies

Christ University was involved in a controversy surrounding the granting of deemed university status. According to norms, before the status is granted, the affiliating university and the State Government are required to submit a "No-Objection Certificate" to the University Grants Commission. The state government refused to grant the request for an NoC. The UGC relied on the NoC from Bangalore University and the NoC from the state government was not a requirement and recommended university status to the institution. The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India based on the UGC recommendation granted the University status. The institute is now a deemed to be university.