St. Xavier’s College is proud to be granted the status of an Autonomous College under the University of Mumbai from the academic year 2010-11. St. Xavier’s applied for Academic Autonomy in October 2007. It was granted permission for this, after due process, by the University of Mumbai, in March 2009 and by the Government of Maharashtra in August 2009. Finally after a review committee from the University Grants Commission visited the College in early April 2010, the application for Autonomy was considered by the Commission at its meeting on the 4th of May 2010. The UGC permission for the Autonomous status from the academic year 2010-11 was received in early June. The University notification of Autonomous status has been effected from the 16th of June 2010 for 5 years.

           Academic Autonomy places trust in the Faculty of St. Xavier’s College to take up the responsibility of designing its
own courses, framing its own syllabii and conducting its own evaluation for its students. This is a system of academic freedom mandated by the UGC and implemented in other Universities of the country for about 30 years. This does not mean financial autonomy. The Government of Maharashtra will continue to provide funding for salaries as before and the University of Mumbai will continue to grant our students their degrees. The fees will remain the same as stipulated by the University of Mumbai. St. Xavier’s is grateful for the opportunity of implementing Autonomy, as it will help the College to upgrade the quality of its education, in keeping with the capability of its competent and dedicated faculty and the excellent students it draws from all over the country.

            St. Xavier’s College has prepared intensively for Autonomy over the last 3 years, working out its Credit System, Semester System and its System of Continuous Internal Evaluation, with Faculty visits to other Autonomous Colleges in Chennai and Bangalore, with Faculty Seminars and Workshops and with training in different methods of evaluation. The faculty also draws on its long experience of innovation in educational pedagogy practiced through its Honours' Programme and other initiatives. The College is confident that it will succeed in meeting the aspiration of its students and of Indian society, in bringing international quality Higher Education to its beautiful heritage campus.

            Autonomy will apply only to the newly admitted First Year Students of the undergraduate courses in 2010-11 and then progressively to the other years of study in the academic years ahead. Those students in their Second or Third Years of study during this academic year 2010-11, will continue with the system they started with under the University of Mumbai curriculum and evaluation.

            The year 2009-10 has been turbulent, yet momentous. Turbulent because of the University Teachers’ Strike over the 6th Pay Commission implementation. But academic time lost was adequately made up. Momentous, because the College was in its 140th year which we celebrated with an International Human Rights Conference, An Exhibition of all our Departments and an Alumni Dinner at which we felicitated eminent alumni and retired faculty, released a Coffeetable Book on the College. And Momentous because we earned Autonomy! We look forward in the years ahead, with God’s help, to bringing international levels of education to our beautiful heritage campus.

Frazer Mascarenhas S.J.