University Of Madras — harassment of students

Address:

600005

Respected sir,

I am a student studying in the second year of counselling psychology. I would like to bring to your notice as to how our department has been giving us one anxious moment after another.

Dr. Thenmozhi, who is the h. O. D has been constantly abusing her power and inducing fear among all the students which is causing deep emotional stress. Students are being harassed and humiliated.

Moreover, the department is running in a highly disorganized and unsystematic manner. Exam dates are always pre/postponed without any prior notice. The exam papers are often withheld and we are not allowed to even check our answer sheets. With due respect to her credentials, but sir, the classes that are conducted are of extremely poor quality. She is never prepared for the class and often we are told that it happens because it has been really long since she has taken the subject/topic. It is very difficult to find inspiration inside or outside the classroom.

All of this has unfortunately left no room for mutual respect between the students and the h. O. D.

On a personal note i feel harassed and constantly victimized and sometimes all of this, merely because i do not belong to the tamil community. Many times, the community i come from is targeted and i am repeatedly shamed. I am always looked upon as an outsider.

On confronting, we are often threatened of being issued a tc on the basis of bad conduct but in reality it is us who are at the receiving end. Students crying is a very normal sight and i feel its a shame especially when we see this in the department of counselling psychology. We are constantly reminded of the power she carries with her and that how no one can even think of taking any action against her, be it anyone from the higher authorities of the university.

Some o[censored]s have taken steps of even recording our conversations with her.

Initially we were very scared to even think about taking these issues to the higher authorities because we were under the impression that this could affect our careers. But things have only gotten bad to worse.

With all this kept aside, i still try to prove my credentials by performing at the best of my abilities. I am a married woman and although it gets very difficult, i try my level best to match up to the standards of the best students that this university has produced.

My worry is that now, with hardly 6 months before the end of my course in this university, my career is under constant threat. It takes a lot for a married woman to convince everyone to study especially when the society doesn't support me in my endeavors.