8 faculty members of IIMC Delhi expressed desire to be relieved of their administrative responsibilities
Eight out of the 11 faculty members of Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi have accused its Director General of "targeting and defaming" them and expressed desire to be relieved of their administrative responsibilities.
They have written to IIMC Director General (DG) K G Suresh and also to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry Secretary, who is also its chairperson.
When contacted, Mr Suresh said many of these faculty members are into "activism" and their "tantrums" can be described as the "theatre of the absurd".
In their letter to the I&B Secretary, dated July 7, they have alleged the DG's statements in the media "publicly insulted" them and "callously sullied" their reputation.
"We believe that such sweeping, irresponsible and unwarranted statements about the IIMC faculty are factually wrong, professionally unethical, defaming and deeply disturbing," reads the letter.
"They malign and do incalculable damage to the hard earned reputation of the IIMC faculty members as well as to the image of the institute as a whole," it adds.
On the same day, they also wrote to Mr Suresh detailing how their repeated requests to meet him to discuss pressing academic issues have fallen on "deaf ears" even as the new academic session is set to begin in August.
"We find the IIMC administration headed by yourself increasingly unilateral, non-transparent and marked by adhocism. There is very little commitment on the part of the IIMC administration to uphold the academic standards let alone the improvement," the letter said.
Mr Suresh said the faculty members are "even against marking their attendance" and he was merely seeking accountability.
"We are a professional training institution not a liberal arts university. There are days when none of them (the faculty members) could be seen. Many of them are into activism. That is why the institution has declined over the years, because there's no academic discipline or accountability," Mr Suresh said.
The government is very clear that 30 per cent internal resource generation should be there and unless faculty and staff work how can that happen, he asked.
"Our non-teaching staff are following the biometric system. They have asked me in writing to take action against errant faculty," he said.
Recently, Shashwati Goswami was removed as the director of the Radio and Television Journalism course while Shivaji Sarkar, who was heading the English Journalism course and has around 10 months of service left, was asked to serve the IIMC's Odisha (Dhenkanal) campus.
"If course directorships or headships are to be changed, the criterion for appointment to, rotation of and period of holding charge should be made explicit," the faculty members write.
Apart from Ms Goswami and Mr Sarkar, the other faculty members who are signatories to the letter were heading the following departments: communication research, community radio resource centre, new media, publication and national media faculty development programme and development journalism.