SRM University, Chennai

Over the past 25 years, SRMU, which celebrated its silver jubilee last year, has acquired an excellent reputation for campus infrastructure, and offers numerous study and research options

Sited on a sprawling 240-acre campus in Kattankulathur, Chennai, the Sri Ramaswamy Memorial University (SRMU, estb. 1985 as SRM Engineering College and   conferred varsity status in 2002) is among the country’s largest privately-promoted universities offering contem-porary education in engineering, medicine and health sciences, business management, science and the human-ities. Over the past 25 years, the university, which celebrated its silver jubilee last year, has acquired a national reputation for its excellent campus infrastructure and offers numerous study and research opportunities for students in India and abroad. Recently SRMU was in the national spotlight for hosting the 98th Indian Science Congress (January 3-7) which was inaugurated by prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and attracted 10,400 delegates including 7,000 scientists, academicians and six Nobel laureates.

The high public esteem that SRM University currently enjoys is attributable to its visionary media-shy promoter T.R. Pachamuthu. Born into a poor farmer’s family in Thandavaraya-puram village in Salem district, but defying all odds, he graduated in mathematics and went on to qualify as an engineer of the Associate Member-ship of Institutions of Engineers (AMIE) programme certified by the Institution of Engineers. Pachamuthu began his career as a school teacher but his strong conviction that only education can empower the poor prompted him to establish the Florence Nightingale School in 1969 in Chennai, and in the very same year he also registered the Valliammai Society (in remembrance of his mother Valliammai),  which currently runs the SRM group of institutions.

As the school grew and flourished, Pachamuthu ventured into higher education in 1984 by establishing the Valliammai Polytechnic, and when in 1985 the then state government of Tamil Nadu, headed by M.G. Ramachandran, issued a government order permitting self-financing engineering/medical colleges in the state, Pachamuthu established the now well known SRM Engineering College.

Since then there’s been no looking back and with the reportedly active backing of MGR, several other colleges of professional education were promoted viz — the SRM  colleges of nursing and pharmacy (1992); physiotherapy, nursing, arts and science; hotel management and institute of manage-ment studies (1993-94); SRM Dental College (1995); Easwari Engineering College, SRM Polytechnic, and College of Occupational Therapy (1996-1997) and SRM Institute of Management and Technology (1997) — in rapid succession and received enthusiastic public support. In 2002 the SRM College of Dentistry was awarded deemed university status following which the engineering, paramedical, and other colleges were brought under its ambit.

In 2006, SRMU was awarded the status of a full-fledged university by the Central government. With heavy demand for admissions, branch camp-uses were established in Ramapuram and Vadapalani in Chennai, Modi Nagar in Delhi and a 60-acre campus in Tiruchi. Today SRMU boasts 20 constituent colleges with an aggregate enrolment of 40,000 students including 300 foreign students instructed by over 1,800 teaching and 1,700 administrative personnel.

“Our focus is on all-round develop-ment of students so that they emerge as mature, responsible citizens endowed with social commitment and leadership qualities. Our students are exposed to a multi-cultural environment with almost 80 percent of them coming from outside Tamil Nadu and from as far afield as Europe and China. Our international alliances and collaborative initiatives, foreign faculty, flexible curriculum and excellent research capabilities sets us apart from other universities,” says Dr. M. Ponnavaikko, provost and chief academic officer of SRMU. An alumnus of the College of Engineering, Guindy and IIT-Delhi, with over 40 years experience in industry and academia in India and abroad, Dr. Ponnavaikko signed up with SRMU in July 2009.

A distinguishing feature of SRM University is the wide choice of study programmes and Ph D options offered by the varsity’s six faculties — 38 undergraduate and 45 postgraduate. Moreover, the university through its ‘semester abroad’ programme, sends 100 deserving students every year to study for one semester in several blue-chip universities including MIT, Carnegie Mellon and Berkeley. Currently SRMU boasts student exchange progra-mmes with over 25 foreign universities and an international advisory board.

Yet by common consensus the most outstanding feature of SRMU is the excellent infrast-ructure of all its four campuses. The well-landscaped, 250-acre, wi-fi enabled  Kattankulathur campus houses 39 blocks, 288 classrooms, 100 smart class-rooms, an air-conditioned 4,000-seat auditorium; 179 hi-tech laboratories; a three-storey air-conditioned Central library stocked with over 100,000 volumes apart from subscriptions to six online journals, five databases and six e-books. Other conveniences on campus include ten canteens, cafeterias, bookstores, ATMs, a huge gymnasium, the 3-star SRM Hotel with swimming pool and the SRM Medical Hospital. Students are housed in 18 hostels offering all facilities including a luxurious international 6,615 sq.m hostel with 80 air-conditioned rooms to accommodate 160 foreign students. Sports facilities include separate courts for tennis, volleyball, badminton and basketball, in addition to yoga and horse riding.

Unsurprisingly, the excellent academic reputation built by SRMU over a quarter century attracts nearly 250 top corporates including TCS, Infosys, Microsoft, Accenture, Infotech, Bank of America, Honeywell, Brakes India and HSBC among others, to its annual placement jamborees. In December 2010, corporates including TCS (1,030 students), Wipro and HCL recruited 2,023 SRMU students in seven days — a new placements record with nano-scientist R. Shivaraman signed up by the US-based Seagate Technologies for the highest ever annual package of $280,000 (Rs.1.4 crore).

“We will strive for continuous improvement in academics and research and develop into a full-fledged multi-disciplinary institution. We also plan to start a research park which will bring industry into the campus and establish SRMU as a national research hub within the next decade,” vows Ponnavaikko.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)