Activities And Contributions Of The Alumni Association

 The National Council of Education, Bengal was the first institution in the country to form an Alumni Association. Today, the Jadavpur University Alumni Association has eleven branches in India alone, besides bodies in Canada, UK, USA and Australia. The number of regular members is approximately 2,500. The Association has its own building on the campus. The ground floor of this building is used as the pavilion of the Sports Club of the University.

Among the earlier contributions of the Association to the University is the Indoor Stadium, built from funds raised by the Alumni. The Association has also placed its technological expertise at the service of the community. A notable instance is the Dhakuria bridge, the main link from Jadavpur to central and northern Kolkata. When this was being constructed in the 1960s, a major designing problem which threatened to stall construction was solved by the expert suggestion of Jadavpur alumni conveyed through the Association.

Among the notable activities of the Association at present are the following:

1. Scholarships and awards
The Association awards 2 scholarships per annum from an endowment created by alumni in the US. It also makes approx. 50 other awards of various sorts per annum to students.

2. Computer Training Courses
Although the Association has limited computer resources, it utilises them not only for its own work but also to offer short-term courses on a limited scale in basic computer use, database systems, spreadsheets and word-processing.

3. Guest Rooms
The Association maintains simple guest house facilities in the Association office building for use by members and University guests at low cost.

4. Lecturers, Seminars and Cultural Activities
The Association holds lectures, seminars, workshops, cultural activities and musical meets from time to time. There is a regular musical group of alumni, their family members and friends, who stage cultural functions at regular intervals, and also organises shows to raise funds for the Association.

5. News Bulletin
The Association brings out a News Bulletin at regular intervals. It has also published a brief history of the Association, and looks forward to more publications of this nature.

6. Platinum Jubilee Building Project
During the Platinum Jubilee celebrations, an ambitious project was taken in hand to build a sizeable building which would house an auditorium to seat 300 persons, a guest house spread over an entire floor, a computer room and other offices and facilities. Construction work has made considerable progress.