ST. STEPHEN’S COLLEGE (Established: 1881, Affiliated to the University of Delhi) NAAC SELF-STUDY REPORT 2014-15 1 CONTENTS I. Campus Map 4 II. A Brief Historical Account 5 III. A Timeline 9 IV. Faculty and Staff 14 V. SWOC Analysis 18 VI. Self-Study Report 24 1. Profile of the College 25 2. Criteria-wise Inputs 33 i) Criterion I: Curricular Aspects 34 ii) Criterion II: Teaching-Learning and Evaluation 45 iii) Criterion III: Research, Consultancy and Extension 66 iv) Criterion IV: Infrastructure and Learning Resources 86 v) Criterion V: Student Support and Progression 95 vi) Criterion VI: Governance, Leadership and Management 154 vii) Criterion VII: Innovations and Best Practices 156 3. Evaluative Reports of Various Department 159 4. Best Practices 215 2 5. Post-Accreditation Initiatives 215 6. Declaration by the Head of the Institution 223 3 I. Campus Map 1. Science Faculty Room 9. Bank 17. Rohtas Dhaba 2. Computer Lab 10. Seminar Room 18. Dark Room 3. Girls Washroom 11. XA & XB 19. Estate Office 4. Tutorial Room 12. Faculty Residence 20. Science Dhaba 5. Boys Washroom 13. Principal Office 21. Boys Washroom 6. Biology Lab 14. Staff Room 22. Girls Washroom 7. Language School 15. Main Portico 23. Sports Office 8. Xerox Shop 16. Faculty Washroom 4 II. A Brief Historical Account St. Stephen's College was founded on 1 February 1881 by the Cambridge Mission to Delhi in conjunction with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. The Cambridge Mission comprised a number of Dons from various colleges at Cambridge University, and one of them, the (later Canon) Samuel Scott Allnutt was the founder and the first Principal of the College. There was a St. Stephen's School in Delhi, run by the S.P.G Mission since about 1854. The Cambridge Brotherhood arrived in Delhi in 1877 to reinforce the teaching strength of this school. The Government had meanwhile, in 1879 closed down its Delhi College here, thus depriving the city and the neighboring districts of the benefits of higher education. St Stephen's College stepped into the breach in 1881. The College was in fact an extension of the school and for some time, Allnutt was the Principal of both the School and the College. In the early years both the School and the College occupied rented premises in two mansions built in the old Mughal style in the bye lanes off Chandni Chowk, opposite the present Central Bank Building. The College was housed in Shish Mahal in Katra Khushhal Rai in Kinnari Bazar from 1881 to 1890. On 8 December, 1891 it moved into its own beautiful buildings designed by Col (later Sir) Swinton Jacob, the Chief Engineer of Jaipur State. These buildings stand on both sides of the road in Kashmere Gate, close to the historic St. James' Church. On 1 October 1941, the college occupied its present home in the Delhi University Enclave. Designed by Walter George, it is an elegant two story red brick building around four spacious courts. Built on ground levels, it has beautiful lines all along and in other respects too, particularly in the subtle Mughal motifs, it is a fine piece of architecture. Many more buildings have been added since 1941, the most remarkable of them being the Chapel, again designed by Walter George and added in 1952. The University of the Punjab (at Lahore) received its charter more than one year after the founding of St. Stephen's College which became one of the two institutions first affiliated to it. Six students of the College sat for the Intermediate Arts exam of the Calcutta University in 1882, and two students passed the Punjab and two the Calcutta F.A. examination in 1883. St. Stephen's College became one of the three original constituent colleges of the University of Delhi when the latter was established in 1922. The following figures indicate how the number of students in the College fluctuated over the years, and escalated later :1881(5), 1882(10), 1883(31), 5 1884(42), 1885(62), 1888(40), 1892(69), 1893(80), 1897(585), 1902(47), 1904(85), 1906(107), 1909(164), 1915(256), 1918(226), 1924(284), 1928(328), and 1929(355). The number at present is around 1100. In the first ten years the strength of the teaching staff varied between 8 and 12 teachers which gradually rose to between 20 and 25 by 1920 and hardly ever went up beyond 30 until 1960. Since then, the number of teachers has tended to increase rapidly and is now around seventy. Since 1941, the College has been slowly and gradually increasing in numbers and infrastructure. The layout of its present buildings in a 25 acre site was planned for a College of 450 junior members and 35 senior members, with at least half of them in residence. With increasing number of students teachers, administrative staff and the Karamcharis, the college has had to augment space in the library, the cafe, add two blocks of residence and new class-rooms. Between the end of the second decade of this century and the end of 1940's, the College had a number of women students varying between one and twenty. This at a time when there were either no facilities or inadequate facilities for higher education for women in Delhi. The College ceased to be co-educational in 1950; but it became co-educational once again in 1975. St. Stephen's College has many 'firsts' to its credit. It was the first College in India with a large proportion of Englishmen on its teaching staff to appoint an Indian, Sushil Kumar Rudra, as Principal, as far back as 1906. C. F. Andrews, then a teacher in the College, was responsible for this revolutionary step. While its missionary members from England received only a pittance, St. Stephen's was the first among private colleges to have a decent grade for the Indian members of the teaching staff and even more importantly, to treat teachers of Oriental Languages at par with others. It was almost certainly the first by a long chalk to institute the system of study leave for two years on full pay for its Indian teachers, and then send them to Oxford, Cambridge or Dublin. First also, to gradually replace sectarian messes by inter-dining messes, until it had a dining hall large enough to accommodate all its resident students and some teachers at each meal. Both teachers and students going out of St. Stephen's into the larger world outside have made significant contributions to various walks of our national life: education, art, science, law, commerce, administration, sports, journalism and politics. 6 C.F. Andrews, who taught English in the College from 1904 to 1914, was increasingly in demand for his great work as conciliator and fighter against social injustice and political exploitation, all over India and abroad. He left the College in 1914 for Rabindranath Tagore's Shantiniketan, and was instrumental in bringing together the Poet, Mahatma Gandhi, Sarojini Naidu and the Principal S.K. Rudra in memorable friendships. Mahatma Gandhi and Kasturba Gandhi visited the College on 13 April 1915 and thereafter, he often stayed with the Principal on his visits to Delhi, and C.F.Andrews, too in the course of his peregrinations was frequently in the College. Also worth mentioning here is what C.B.Young who taught English and was editor of the St. Stephen's Magazine (later The Stephanian) at the time, wrote about Jallianwala Bagh in the editorial of the July 1920 issue of the Magazine : "These columns as a rule do not engage in current political controversy. As a public institution it is our duty to avoid taking sides on strictly political issues, and where we touch politics at all we endeavor to deal with them in the spirit of impartial students rather than in that of partisans. It only because they matter to our mind concerns, concerns ultimate principle rather than mere party politics and raises profound moral issues that we find it our duty in this number to express our opinion in the subject which more than any other is engaging pubic attention at the moment. We are in empathic agreement with the condemnation bestowed on the action of General Dyer by all the authorities who have pronounced judgment in connection with the Hunter Committee of Enquiry. We rejoice especially at the strong and unequivocal repudiation by the Imperial Government through the mouth of the Secretary of State of the Principles enunciated and followed by General Dyer. With the purely political issues dealt with in the Report - the necessity of martial law and the existence or non - existence of open rebellion - we have less concern. They are questions of interpretation of fact on which opinions may differ without reproach. But as Christian Missionaries we cannot avoid the duty of forming and expressing a judgment on such a deed of horror as the slaughter in Jallianwala Bagh. The former plea has a sinister history. It was Satan, according to Milton, "With necessity, The tyrant 's plea, excused his devilish deeds"; and after him was the German Chancellor, Bethmann Hollweg, who defended the invasion of Belgium on the ground that "necessity knows no law". The second line of defense equally ignores the moral issue. If it could be proved that General Dyer by his action "saved the Punjab", as has been claimed, we would still not withdraw a word that we have written. Better, a thousand times better, in our view, if India were lost to the British Empire, than preserved only by such methods.