The
National Assessment and Accreditation Council has conferred 'five star' accreditation to the university in the first cycle, and subsequently with its highest A++ grade.[11] The University of Madras has been given the status of 'university with potential for excellence (UPE)' by the
University Grants Commission.[12] Madras University is also recognized among the 18 universities in India having the 'Centre with Potential for Excellence in Particular Area (CPEPA)' with a focus on
drug development and
climate change.[13]
The first-ever demand for higher education in
Madras Presidency was given in a public address to
Lord John Elphinstone, governor of Madras, signed by 70,000 residents when the
Governor-in-Council was contemplating "some effective and liberal measures for the establishment of an improved system of national education." This public petition, which was presented by the Advocate General Mr George Norton on 11 November 1839, pressed the need for an English college in the city of Madras. Pursuant to this, Lord Elphinstone evolved a plan for the establishment of a central collegiate institution or a ‘university.’ This university had twin departments – a high school for the cultivation of English literature, regional language, philosophy and science, and a college for instruction in the higher branches of literature, philosophy and science.[16][17]
The University Board was constituted in January 1840 with Mr George Norton as its president. This was the precursor of the present
Presidency College, Chennai. A systematic educational policy for India was formulated 14 years later by
Wood's despatch, which pointed out the rationale for "creating a properly articulated system of education from the primary school to the University." The dispatch recommended the establishment in the universities of professorships "for the purposes of the delivery of lectures in various branches of learning including vernacular as well as classical languages." As a result, the University of Madras, organised on the model of the University of London, was incorporated on 5 September 1857 by an act of the
Legislative Council of India.[18]
In 1912 endowments were made to the university to establish departments of Indian History, Archaeology, Comparative Philology and Indian Economics. In that year the university had 17 departments, 30 teachers, and 69 research scholars. Later the research and teaching functions of the university were encouraged by the
Sadler Commission and the gains of the university were consolidated by the enactment of the Madras University Act of 1923. About this time, the territorial ambit of the Madras University encompassed from
Berhampur of Odisha in the North East,
Trivandrum of Kerala in the South West,
Bangalore and
Mangalore of Karnataka in the West and
Hyderabad of Andhra Pradesh in the North.[20]
Between 1926 and 1939, the university published the comprehensive Tamil Lexicon dictionary, which is the first among the dictionaries published in any Indian language.[21]
Coat of arms
The description of the
coat of arms of the university, designed in 1857, is:
"Argent (silver or white) on a Mount issuant from the basement a Tiger passant proper (walking and coloured naturally), on a Chief Sable (black across the top), a Pale Or (a gold or yellow vertical strip down the centre 1/3 of the top or chief), thereon, between two Elephants heads couped of the field, a lotus flower leaved and slipped of the third, together with this motto Doctrina Vim Promovet Insitam".
The coat of arms colours are: the base is light green, the tiger is yellow on a white background, the elephant is grey on a black background, the lotus is a white flower with olive green leaves, on a gold background. The motto scroll is edged red, with black lettering. The English translation of the motto of the University of Madras is: "Learning promotes natural talent."[22]
Campus
The university has six campuses:
Chepauk,
Marina,
Guindy,
Taramani,
Chetpet and
Maduravoyal. The Chepauk campus of the university houses the administrative buildings, the historic
Senate House, central library, clock tower, centenary auditorium, and several departments under arts, humanities and social science streams. The schools of oriental and Indian are located at the Marina campus. The Guindy campus incorporates the natural sciences departments while the campus at Taramani houses the school of basic medical sciences. The sports union and the botanical garden are based on Chetpet and Maduravoyal campuses respectively. The Department of Mathematics of the university is operated as the
Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics located close to the Chepauk campus.[23] The university has two
constituent college, in
Nemmeli and
Thiruvottiyur, offerings courses in arts and science.[24] Since 1981, the university has also developed an Institute of Distance Education, offering various academic and professional programmes approved by
University Grants Commission under the choice-based credit system (CBCS) pattern.[25]
The University of Madras has a historical monument –
Senate House – which is one of the landmarks of the city of Chennai.[26] The Senate House, the university's first building, inaugurated in the year 1879, is considered a masterpiece of
Robert Fellowes Chisholm, an architect of the 19th century, who blended the Indo-Saracenic style with Byzantine and European architectural features.[27] The university renovated the Senate House in 2006.[28]
View of Clock Tower and Centenary building from
Napier Bridge
New Academic block of the Guindy campus
Façade of the Marina campus
Organisation and Faculties
Governance
The organisational structure of Madras University consists of the Senate, the Syndicate, the Academic Council, the faculties, the Finance Committee, and the boards of studies. The
Governor of Tamil Nadu is the chancellor of the university. The vice-chancellor is the executive head of the university. The registrar of the university, who is the secretary of the Syndicate, is the custodian of all the records and chief administrator of the university. The examinations of the university is managed by Office of the Controller of Examinations.[29]
Faculties and Institutes
University of Madras is organized into eighteen main schools, each of which comprises multiple departments and centres as below:[30]
Centre for Cyber Forensics and Information Security
Chepauk
Political and International Studies
Anna Centre for Public Affairs
UGC - Centre for South and Southeast Asian Studies
Department of Defence and Strategic Studies
Department of Legal Studies
Department of Politics and Public Administration
Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Studies
Chepauk
Information and Communication Studies
Department of Journalism and Communication
Department of Library and Information Science
Chepauk
Fine and Performing Arts
Department of Indian Music
Chepauk
English and Foreign Languages
Department of English
Department of French and other Foreign Languages
Chepauk
Tamil and other Dravidian Languages
Department of Kannada
Department of Malayalam
Department of Tamil Language
Department of Tamil Literature
Department of Telugu
Department of Sangapalagai for Tamil Development
Centre for Thirukkural Research
Chair on Tamil Christian Literature
Centre for Endangered Languages
Centre for Research on Dravidian Movement
Marina
Sanskrit and other Indian Languages
Department of Arabic, Persian and Urdu
Department of Hindi
Department of Sanskrit
Marina
Business and Management
Department of Commerce
Department of Management Studies
Centre for Infrastructural Management Studies
Chepauk
Physical Education and Sports
Department of Physical Education and Sports
Chetpet
Affiliated colleges and research institutions
The university currently has 121 affiliated colleges, with 3 approved institutions, 5 institutions for diploma and certificate courses, 15 stand alone institutions for professional education, and 53 approved research Institutions as of 2019.[31]
The library system of the university consists of four central libraries located at its Chepauk, Marina, Guindy and Taramani campus.[41] Besides, many of the departments and centres have their own library collections. The main university library located at Chepauk was started in 1907 in the
Connemara Public Library, later shifted to the existing building in 1936.
S. R. Ranganathan (a mathematician) was appointed as the first librarian of the university, whose contribution in the development of the field of
library sciences is noteworthy.[42] The library collection includes textbooks, reference books, journals, theses, archives of government gazettes, newsprints, magazines, photographs, rare manuscripts, with a total collection of approximately 1 million volumes, which is among the largest collection of a university library in India.[43][44] The library system also maintains a database of e-books, digital multimedia resources and subscribed to over four thousand e-journals under the UGC-INFONET Digital Library Consortium.[45] The
Government of Tamil Nadu oriental manuscripts library and research centre is located within the main library building at Chepauk.[46] The library is considered as the treasure house for ancient Indian knowledge. Comprises over 25,373 reference books and 72,714 Sanskrit and Tamil manuscripts written on palm leaf, copper plates, tree barks, leather etc. on subjects, like mathematics, astronomy, ayurveda, architecture, fine arts, grammar and literature.[47] The Library of the
Indian Mathematical Society, started in 1907 in Pune, is now housed in the campus of the
Ramanujan Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics.[48]
Research
In 2007, the university was given a special grant of ₹100 crores by the
Ministry of Human Resource Development to establish a nanotechnology research centre in commemoration of its
sesqui-centenary (150th year) celebration. In 2011,
University Grants Commission (UGC) selected the university for its third phase of University with Potential for Excellence (UPE) scheme, under which ₹25 crores were sanctioned for a period of five years.[49] Earlier, the university was selected for the inaugural phase of the scheme in 2001-02 along with
JNU,
Hyderabad University,
Jadavpur University and
Pune University.[50] The National Centre for Ultrafast Process (NCUFP) of the university has mobilized research grants to the tune ₹7 crores through several funded projects including the
DST,
CSIR,
DRDO and
UGC.[51]
The Department of Crystallography and Biophysics was upgraded as a Centre of Advanced Study in 2007 and a grant of ₹2.53 crores was given for modernising research laboratories. The School of Life Sciences of the university received a grant of ₹5.24 crores by the
Department of Biotechnology, under BUILDER (Boost to University of Interdisciplinary Life Science Departments for Education and Research) for strengthening teaching and research programmes during 2014–2019.[24] A study performed by the
NISTADS on the research performance of universities in India during 1998–2008 ranked Madras University at No. 5 based on publication for that period.[52]
In addition,
UGC has identified the School of Earth Sciences and Department of Zoology as the Centres of Excellence and has allotted ₹3.25 crores each for their development.[49] In 2019,
Ministry of Human Resource Development of Government of India granted ₹50 crores to the university for upgrading its research capabilities under
Rashtriya Uchchatar Shiksha Abhiyan (RUSA) scheme.[53]