August 28, 2011
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore
Dr. Venkat, Vice-Chancellor, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, spoke at the 8th convocation, highlighting the rapid advances made by the institution under the guidance of Chancellor Amma. Below are some key excerpts from the Vice-Chancellor’s speech.
I wanted to take a few minutes of your time, to tell you how colossal and magnificent, and spectacular a force Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is today. Drawing its energy and inspiration from our most beloved Chancellor Amma.
Having grown to a five-campus, multi-disciplinary academia, with over 16000 students, Amrita is a large institution today.
There are over 12000 undergraduate students, nearly 3500 postgraduate students and 500 doctoral students pursuing their PhD at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham. We have launched about 40 new academic programs this past year.
The twin pillars of any institution are the students and the faculty. We have more than 1500 faculty members. Some universities around the world do not even have that many students. Over 600 of our faculty members possess a PhD or an equivalent degree such as an MD. Just in the last one year alone, 60 new faculty members with PhDs have joined our institution.
Today at this 8th convocation of Amrita, 4298 students will graduate. These include 1752 engineering bachelors, 108 medical doctors, 310 business majors and 270 engineering masters. Eleven PhD’s will receive their degrees. In recent years, over 200 of our students have gone abroad to eminent universities on various study programs.
During the last eight years after Amrita came into being, our faculty and researchers together have published more than 200 scholarly books. And the number of publications in international and national journals has exceeded 1800. Just in the last one and a half years alone, considering the years 2010 and 2011, more than 60 books were published and over 500 papers accepted in international journals.
We also received two US patents; one for our hospital information system and another for an automatic insulin pump. Our research funding altogether has surpassed 100 crores.
We have about 15 different academic units called schools. Each and every one of these has performed extremely well. In addition we have more than half a dozen specialized centers of excellence which have gained not only national but international reputation in a very short period of time. You can see the big accomplishments made within only eight years since the founding of the institution.
Let me share one secret with you. Each and every one of these major accomplishments, major advances, projects, milestones, recognitions, has been guided very closely, step-by-step, by our most beloved Amma.
