An Insight Into College Administration!!!

It must be fun to be in an administrative position in college. You get to sit in posh offices, can move in an out whenever you wish to, you are called Sir by everyone below you and well, you basically hold the strings of the 4000 students studying in your institute. Well, it’s not exactly your institute, but you have been given the power to do whatever you want to for the supposed good of the 4000 students to whom the institute is actually supposed to belong to. So you ban motor bikes and other vehicles to make the campus environmental friendly and a “safer place,” introduce cycles as a replacement, though how on earth 1000 cycles traveling on the same road is supposed to be safe is beyond me, but well-you are the authority and if you think it’s safe, then it is safe.

You also get to ban camera cell phones on campus so as to prevent the infamous mms scandals. And of course, in all this you also are allowed to forget that the students studying in the institute are no more 15 year old’s but above 18, who by the constitution of India have been given the right to choose to lead their lives the way they want to as long as it is legal. Yet somehow, even though I am now 20 years of age, I still feel like I am being treated like a 15 year old.

Why? You may ask. As all of you are well aware now, cell phones have been banned from our campus. Now this is a very intriguing rule. Just to clarify, this has got nothing to do with rule of cell phones not being allowed in class rooms, that’s a completely understandable and logical rule but the camera phone tingles my nerves. Reason for that is because our classrooms were raided today for cell phones. EnC n EnE departments were the unlucky branches as their cell phones were confiscated. That of course had to end in commotion. According to the statistics presented by the authorities, the number of cell phones confiscated were a staggering 200. Think that’s a record in our beloved MIT.

What is oblivious to me is why are camera phones banned on campus? The response given by one of the teachers was that the camera phones are ‘misused’ by the students, especially against female teachers. Now I don’t know whether any student is actually pathetic enough to indulge in such a behavior, but even if there are, should all of us be punished for the crime of a few? And since the “crime” was committed against female teachers, shouldn’t the rule of not allowing cell phones in class suffice? For where else do we meet our teachers? Yet somehow the college sees fit that this reason is enough to ban cell phones from campus entirely. The simple truth is there are pathetic people with no conscience and no shame every where. An MMS scandal is possible as much on a college campus as in an office but does that mean that you ban them? And imagine if such a thing does happen. Where camera phones are banned from all colleges, schools and offices. Honestly-if this rule was indeed enforced, you can be darn sure that our dear old Nokia, Sony Ericcson and Samsung wouldn't be happy. But I guess they wouldn't be in a position to complain because they would be bankrupt by then and also no one would dare to think about technical advancements in the field of electronics in the fear that a bunch of guys sitting in an ac room might ban them.

Nevertheless, as soon as the classes were over, the poor students rushed to their head of department’s office hoping to reason with him. The ENC staff room chamber must have been the most crowded ever as throngs of students waited outside the Head of Department’s chamber hoping against hope that their cell phones would be returned. There were the usual bystanders as well, who had just come to see what the commotion was all about. Commotion can be enjoyable as long as you are not a part of it. Nevertheless, after what seemed like an endless wait, the Class Representative’s finally came out of the HOD chambers saying the cell phones would be returned only after paying a fine of 500 rupees and the camera phones would not be returned till the parents of the respective students came to collect. This immediately resulted in cat calls, boos, frantic discussions of what to do next and what not.

The students with camera phones were the one’s who most looked stressed for obvious reasons. Talks of going to the joint director and director cropped up as well as of burning MIT to ground, which unfortunately no one listened to. Our residential NRI’s were even more worried, how on earth were they going to get their parents to come to India to collect a cell phone. Of course, when you are the authority you don’t have to listen to all that. It’s not for you to worry that the parents stay outside India and in order to collect a cell phone they have to pay twenty thousand rupees air fare, which might be “slightly inconvenient for them.” Hell, it’s the parent’s fault that they can afford to pay for such an expensive phone and decided to gift it to their son on his birthday. And if they can pay for such a phone, then they can definitely pay for the air fare. This was clearly amplified when a bunch of students decided to approach a teacher for help. One of the students tried to make the point that his parents stay outside India and it’s highly inconvenient for them to come all the way to Manipal just to collect a cell phone. The professor, without even listening further, shouted at the student saying, “I don’t care if your parents are in Hell.” These, my friends, were his exact words. And this professor happens to be one of the senior most in our college. Yet, as he too forms a part of the administration, I suppose he will get away with saying that he didn’t care if some one’s parents were in hell. Because when you are the authority, you probably think Nokia should be banned from introducing the N-series for they are corrupting the youth.

The thing I really want to know is when we will actually get to act like adults and stop being told what to do and what not to do. From the age of 3 this same trend has continued. Today, most of us are above 18. Yet it’s the authorities who decide everything for us. We are the one’s who pay their wages and for what? For being treated like 5 year olds? The student council in this college is a joke which is just there because there’s supposed to be one. It holds absolutely no power what so ever. Almost every suggestion that the students actually think is beneficial to them is thumbed down by the authorities for they are supposed to know what’s good and bad for us.

Two of the EnC classes complained against one of its teacher’s asking for a replacement but in both cases the HOD made the excuse that there’s no alternative. And that my friend is seriously an honest answer. For you really don’t have an alternative. Either you accept the rules of the administration, however blatalant they may seem or the authority punishes you. For the simple fact is friends; that the authority doesn’t care if your parents are in hell.