The dean of our college has lost it. This is the latest mail that the student body has received from her. Now we have classes till 8 PM. No time for internships, seminars, extra curriculars, competitive exam prep, etc.

On top of this there are day scholars in the college and the surrounding area around Cuttack is not safe at all. A zomato delivery boy was killed in front of our college 1.5 years ago at 5 PM.

Mental health issues in the college have been at peak with numerous suicides and suicide attempts in the last 5 years.

There is regular breathalyzer checks when students enter college. They have taken away access from rooms allotted to college committees. Boys are not allowed to drop girls to their hostels since that is against the culture of the college. Juniors cannot go to a seniors room (Under the guise of preventing ragging)

The Admin refuses to communicate. VC is non existent, if she is there she usually makes stuff worse. If we go to registrar he says it is not my department go to concerned people. Dean will outright refuse to communicate.

Surprisingly this mail is one of the more competently and sensibly drafted mail by the dean. This is the standard set by the dean of academics of a national law university.

Mail:

Dear all,

We worked out tutorial time-table yesterday.

1.As of now after engaging empty slots in the time-table, tuorial classes will go till about 8 pm. 7.30 if we remove 5 minutes breaks after 3.30 class. So requests such as I can't come at 9 am and can't stay after 4 pm cannot be entertained.

2. It is not possible to have groups either of 15 or 20 because we do not have enough rooms. SO as of now kindly take tutorial classes of all students in the section to mark attendance.

3. With time table tight from 9 am to 7.30 or 8 pm, there is no option but to take compensatory classes on Saturdays.

4. Whether there will be evaluation for tutorial or not, and if there will be what will be the mode, has to be finalised. The group discussion is not working out in physical mode.

5. Students and faculty PLEASE do not bombard this email account with responses. I wont be reading and replying. Whatever your views and inputs, it needs to be sorted in a different, peaceful and sensible way. I dont have time and energy to engage in endless discussions on mail.

--
Sheela RaiDean Academics

National Law University Odisha

Lots of issues with Sheela Rai. She does not even share the teaching plan that is supposed to be shared at the start of semester. How are students even suppose to know the syllabus? Makes personal comments on students for silliest of reasons. Should be shown the door for betterment of everyone.

You can tell Sheela Rai that she works at a uni which will and should be the laughing stock of the world. Can you please drop her email as a response (mods please don't get in the way, this is a matter of public interest...), maybe some external "[bombardment]" will do her some good. Shai Davidai published emails on Twitter of high level University of Columbia administration officials when he wanted people to blow back against their responses to Gaza protests, similar exercise here (though not being so emotive obviously).

The classes for any student cannot be for 12 hours on any given day, that's just a hyperbole. Just because the timetable goes on from 9 to 8 doesn't mean that a student will have every class during this period. Moreover, there is a simple way of sorting this out. Make groups of electives and ensure that students choose one group or the other. So that simultaneous classes can go on. You can't have the choice of any combination that you want and still retain the luxury of ending classes early.

Then don't make it mandatory, and keep it optional. I don't there is a BCI mandate for tutorials as well. And most importantly, had you have the good or even decent faculties then would have taught well in regular classes. But Ved Ma'am/Rangin Sir/Sheela Ma'am, all you have is sub-par faculties from DU, who use the NLU tag aa a launch pad for their career. It takes two to tango and increasing the class hours won't do any justice to the kind of education you guys can impart. You are just on a way to copying other institutions without realising the stark difference between NLUO and other institutions. You are failing as a management and still on high horses and not ready to hear anyone. For you it's has become an ego battle where you feel you are the supreme leader of masses and no one can dare to say anything otherwise you keep the proctor in your pocket.

Reflect on your actions before it's too late.

Please reflect on what you are saying. Obviously people need to be studying many hours a day in order to gain a thorough understanding of the law. But that doesn't mean randomly increasing class timings. Why not get them to do more reading in advance and have more seminar-style or tutorial-style smaller classes?

Having seen this university for the past five years, all I can say is that the nose dive is for real. The admin is cranky and stupid at its best. The only good thing about this university is the caliber and hardwork of the students hustling in it. I am afraid, with the lack of academic support and irrational policy changes, the present placement stats will become a distant dream for the future batches (except only if the current admin is totally done away with)

This is a shit show. Genuinely the BA law and 3 Year llb need to cut down their acts and collectively join to protest. Even if not protesting, help get rid of Ved Kumari. Her term will be one more year and she has been hell-bent on ruining everything from mental health to fests. Someone needs to alert the consortium of NLUs and BCI. This is an even semester and we have a record of suicides in every even semester.

Just to sum up the changes in the past 6 months by the administration:
1) The academic block is closed post 7 pm (apart from there are no spaces in the university for committees to convene meetings or for students to prepare for moots)
2) "Tutorial classes" have been introduced to cover up for the mess in attendance
3) The examination policy is changed where the written exam will only consist of a 60 mark end sem paper, 15 marks for "attendance", 25 marks for project and viva, leaving a major portion of evaluation to the dicreation of professors.
4) Classes have been extended from 9 A.M to 8 P.M with no breaks in between. The hostel out timing is 8.30 P.M effectively leaving 30 minutes for any outside work a student has.
5) All shops on campus have been closed down including 2 shops in boys hostel, 1 shop in girls hostel and the laundry service.
6) The academic calender is pushed from semester ending on 1 May to ending on 6 May and from 1 Novemeber to 11 November for even and odd sems respectively. This has disturbed internship schedules of the students, many of whom have already got an internship from May 1.
7) No date has been announced for conducting exams left the previous semester.
8) The VC of the university has refused to meet with the student body for discussions on the pretext of technicality.