251DOI: https://doi.org/10.37514/PER-B.2012.0346.2.22
CHAPTER 22.
STUDENT WRITING IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF MADRAS:
TRADITIONS, COURSES,
AMBITIONS
By Susaimanickam Armstrong
University of Madras (India)
Writing courses and related initiatives at the University of Madras
make available to the students the skills of writing. According to their
programs and interests, students are trained in many forms of writing,
including professional, creative, and research. is prole describes
some techniques and assignments used as part of these writing oppor-
tunities in various disciplines. It attempts to critically understand the
role of the university in forwarding new trends in writing and com-
munication that play a major role in establishing careers of students
and that are shaping the development of the academic and creative
world. e author describes in detail his own expanded uses of writing
in a literature course. Further, the essay spells out the progress of “soft
skills” programs in several languages, by which students gain new hori-
zons in language acquisition. Finally, it projects a range of new writ-
ing/communications initiatives by which the university can expand its
importance in the burgeoning economy of its region.
e 153-year old University of Madras (UOM) is the mother of almost all
the old universities of Southern India. It is an aliated, state university under
the Government of Tamil Nadu. e university area of jurisdiction has been
conned to three districts of Tamil Nadu in recent years. is is consequent
to the establishment of various universities in the state and demarcation of the
university territories.
rough its long history, the university has diversied its teaching and re-
search. UOM has produced two presidents for the Government of India and
has three Nobel laureates to her credit. e university imparts both under-
graduate and post-graduate education through over 100 aliated institutions
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that are spread over the districts of Chennai, iruvalluvar, and Kancheepuram.
Apart from teaching, research activities in arts, humanities, science, manage-
ment, and technology are the main portals of the university.
e 68 university departments of study and research are spread over four
campuses organized into 18 schools, each of which oers post-graduate courses
in part-time and full-time PhD programs and diploma and certicate programs
(http://www.unom.ac.in/). Addressing education needs of an even larger popu-
lation of the country, the university oers both undergraduate and post-gradu-
ate education through the Institute of Distance Education (IDE). Some of the
courses oered by IDE have no parallel in this country.
HISTORY AND HERITAGE
e Public Petition dated 11 November 1839 initiated the establishment of
the Madras University. In January 1840, with George Norton as its President, the
University Board was constituted, but it was not until 1857 that the university
was established by an act of the Legislative Council. e university was organized
on the model of the University of London (Hunter, 1886; Mahalingam, 1974;
University of Madras, 2001). By 1912, endowments were made to the university
to establish departments of Indian History, Archaeology, Comparative Philology,
and Indian Economics. In all there were 17 University departments, 30 Univer-
sity teachers, 69 research scholars, and 127 University publications in that year.
Later, the research and teaching functions of the university were encouraged by
the Sadler Commission, and the gains of the university were consolidated by
the enactment of the Madras University Act of 1923. About this time, the ter-
ritorial ambit of the Madras University encompassed from Berhampur of Orissa
in the North, Trivandrum of Kerala in the Southwest, Bangalore and Manga-
lore of Karnataka in the West and Hyderabad of Andhra Pradesh in the South.
However, Indian independence in 1947, the setting up of the University Grants
Commission in 1956, and changes in the political, social, and cultural milieu
brought several amendments to the University of Madras Act of 1923 to permit
qualitative and quantitative changes in its jurisdiction and functions.
MOST SALIENT GEOGRAPHIC, ECONOMIC, AND
CULTURAL FEATURES OF ITS LOCATION
UOM is located in Chennai, formerly known as Madras, the capital city of
the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. Chennai is thefourth most populous metro-
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politan areaand the fth most populous cityin India. Located on the Coro-
mandel Coast of theBay of Bengal, Chennai city had a population of 4.34
million in the 2001 census.e urban agglomeration of metropolitan Chennai
has an estimated population of over 8.2 million people.
Chennai’s economy has a broad base of auto, computer, technology, hard-
ware manufacturing, and healthcare industries. e city is India’s second largest
exporter of software, information technology, and information-technology-en-
abled services. A major chunk of India’s auto manufacturing industry is based in
and around the city. Chennai Zone contributes 39 per cent of the State’s GDP.
Chennai accounts for 60 per cent of the country’s automotive exports.
Chennai is an important centre for folk songs and Carnatic musicand hosts
a large cultural event, the annual Madras Music Season, which includes per-
formances by hundreds of artists. e city has a vibrant theatre scene and is an
important centre for theBharatanatyam, a classical dance form. eTamillm
industry, one of the largest in India, is based in the city; the soundtracks of the
lms dominate its music scene.
e University of Madras is spread over six campuses, viz., Chepauk, Ma-
rina, Guindy, Taramani, Chetpet, and Maduravoyal. e main campus of the
University of Madras is located in Chepauk. e stately and historic Senate
House, the Library building with its imposing clock tower, the spacious Cen-
tenary Auditorium, and the massive Centenary Building are some of the im-
portant buildings of the university campus at Chepauk. Most of the science
departments are located in the Guindy Campus of the university. e campus
at Taramani houses the Dr. A. Lakshmanaswamy Mudaliar Post-Graduate Insti-
tute of Basic Medical Sciences. e Oriental and Indian languages departments,
the Post-graduate Hostel for Men and the University Guesthouse are located
in the Marina Campus. e University Union for Sports and its pavilion are
on the Spur Tank Road in Chetpet. e Botanical Garden of the University is
located in the Maduravoyal campus.
WHAT “LITERACY” AND ESPECIALLY “WRITING”
MEAN TO STUDENTS AND TEACHERS IN UOM:
WHY THEY WRITE, IN WHAT LANGUAGES AND
DIALECTS, IN RELATION TO WHAT GOALS?
1
By and large, the students and teachers of the University of Madras (UOM)
assume that “literacy” and especially “writing” mean only writing sessional tests
and end-of-semester examinations. Writing practice here is clubbed with exam-
ination of students’ memory and understanding of their subjects. English is the
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254
medium of instruction at UOM, but is a second language for the students, who
bring with them a broad range of rst languages: Hindi (national language),
Tamil (regional mother tongue), Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, North
Eastern Tribal languages, Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. UOM also admits inter-
national students who speak English, French, Sinhalese, Chinese, Japanese,
Tibetan, and other languages. Is writing practice dierent from examination
of subject knowledge? It remains a question here. Proper attention for writ-
ing practice is not professionally administered in universities such as UOM in
India. Students write their three sessional tests per semester and end-semester
examinations in English, except for the students in their respective language
departments. For the most part, the goal of students here is to score top-ranking
marks and not to improve their writing skills. However, there are a few elective
courses in writing, described below, that serve other student goals.
WHAT STUDENTS WRITE IN THE INSTITUTION:
DISCIPLINES, GENRES, ASSIGNMENTS
ough the medium of instruction in UOM is English, students write in
other Indian and regional languages depending upon the respective language
departments in the campuses. Students answer objective type or multiple-
choice questions in one word; they also write short notes in 50 words, para-
graphs in 150 to 200 words, and essays in 500 words or more. is is the
general examination pattern in UOM. In science disciplines, students write lab
experiment reports of two or three pages, do statistical analysis, and submit a
Record Book as a part of general examination writing. Data-based reports, eld
studies, interview transcriptions, and media reports are some of the assignments
given in the departments of Archeology, Journalism, Economics, Econometrics,
Statistics, and Management Studies. e departments of Literatures, Languag-
es, Geography, History, Politics, Psychology, and other human sciences assign
book reviews. Some of the Departments of Indian Languages in UOM encour-
age students who are interested in creative writing in their respective mother
tongues, among them English, Tamil, and Malayalam.
Writing per se is the subject in several courses oered by Journalism and
English. For example, Journalism oers a course in technical communication
that includes manual writing, ier design, and brochure design and writing.
A core course in Journalism introduces writing for radio, television, TV news,
cinema, and the Internet. Peer review is an important element of this course.
e objective of the course in Copy Editing is to introduce the students to the
basic skills of editing as applicable in the eld of publishing and journalism. e
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University of Madras (India)
Department of English oers an elective course in Writing Skills that features
thesis writing, proposals, and research writing. Other courses oered by English
will be described in later sections of this essay.
WHO “CARES” IN THE INSTITUTION ABOUT STUDENT
GROWTH IN AND THROUGH WRITING? HOW IS THIS
CONCERN—OR LACK OF CONCERN—SHOWN IN
FUNDING, REQUIREMENTS, ATTITUDES, ACTIONS?
UOM does not have an ocial body in charge of students’ growth in and
through writing. e respective research supervisors during the preparation of
research dissertations for post-graduate degrees, the Master of Philosophy in
various disciplines, and doctoral degrees will normally address the writing and
editing skills of the student scholars. For sessional or periodical tests, end-se-
mester examinations, and submitted assignments, the respective course coordi-
nators take care of the evaluation of writing.
e University Students Advisory Board (USAB), which is funded by the
university and partly supported by the Government of Tamil Nadu, and the
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Centre for Economic Studies, fully funded by the Govern-
ment of India, conduct writing courses for the socially disadvantaged students
of the university and her aliated colleges. is Centre periodically conducts
coaching classes for students to take up various job-oriented competitive ex-
aminations. Subject experts do conduct writing practices in their respective
elds. USAB is very much interested in helping students get suitable job place-
ments; they very often conduct job fairs in collaboration with leading Info Tech
companies. USAB also facilitates student-oriented programs, such as remedial
coaching classes, and conducts training for students who aspire for competitive
examinations. Ample writing exercises are given to test students’ writing skills.
Neither USAB nor the Ambedkar Centre has a writing program per se, but
developing such courses in the near future is a possibility.
ONE ILLUSTRATION OF SUCCESS IN
TEACHING WRITING IN A DISCIPLINE
I trained a set of 14 pre-doctoral (Master of Philosophy in English) students
who opted an elective course entitled “Discourses of Domination, Resistance,
and Emancipation: Race, Caste, and Gender” during the academic year 2007-
2008. is course focused more on writing skills than others I have previously
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taught. e students had to prepare two assignments, and then present them as
papers. After presentation, students were asked to share the presented papers for
peer review. After this step, they were asked to interview experts on the topics of
research that they had prepared, presented, and peer reviewed (e.g., Gajendran,
1998; Guru, 1998). ese interviews were later transcribed and prepared in a
format t for publication. My task as the coordinator of this course was to com-
pile all of this work as an anthology having the following features:
• Broad division of chapters containing individual papers
• Bibliographic essay on race, caste, and gender (to which three students
contributed)
• Compilation of the interviews with experts, relevant to the themes of the
student papers
• Compilation of ocial/archival/gubernatorial documents gathered by
the students as additional information on their themes.
For example, a student who presented a paper on trans-gender interviewed
a trans-gender leader in Chennai, who in turn directed the student to the gov-
ernment oce where an order issued in favor of trans-gender was available.
e student annexed this document to the proposed anthology for the benet
of future researchers. is student also contributed to the section of the biblio-
graphic essay on genders.
For the M. Phil. students of the Department of English at the University of
Madras this was a new educational experience. Normally, students of literature
will not go out for eld study here. In this course, students shared that they
had enriching experiences during interviews with subject experts, activists, writ-
ers, critics, and political leaders. One of the students interviewed a Minister
for Social Welfare. For her, it was a thrilling experience. Some of them told
me that they learned the art of interviewing through transcribing the recorded
interviews. Students who felt very shy in the class beneted from going out to
attend seminars and present papers with the help of their peers. I wanted to
give a social science perspective to literary and cultural studies research such as
this. Normally, some of the best social science work will have a literary touch.
I wanted to experiment with this type of research with my team of students,
and this fusion worked out very well, as I could see this in the writings and the
interesting titles given by the students to their papers.
rough this complex assignment, students developed the following:
• Interviewing skills
• Book review skills
• Research paper writing methods
• Proposal writing methods
• Looking at literature through a social science perspective
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• Team research skills
• Self-editing skills
WHEN AND HOW HAVE GROUPS OF TEACHERS MET
TO DISCUSS AND PERHAPS PLAN WAYS TO HELP
STUDENTS GROW AS WRITERS? WHAT HAS RESULTED?
ough there is no professional group of teachers to teach writing skills to
students of their respective departments, the Department of English has been
oering courses on technical writing and copy editing for the past ve years as
electives for the students of all disciplines in UOM. e coordinator of these
courses has received overwhelming response from various departments. Stu-
dents are made aware of the importance of mastering the nuances of the writ-
ten language. Examples are taken from real life work scenarios. For example,
the students are shown examples from the print media where errors have been
overlooked. us, they are trained to be sensitive to language use. e students
go through a very result-oriented training program in dierent kinds of writing
assignments. e results of this training have been positive. Select students in a
class exhibit enthusiasm to become awless writers.
NEW INITIATIVES IN TEACHING WRITING
e University of Madras has been oering the Soft Skills program for its
students. It is mandatory for every student in the MA, MSc, MCom, and MBA
programs of the university to acquire eight credits from this program to success-
fully complete their post-graduation degree. e objective of the program is to
enable students to understand and produce the target language accurately and
uently. Emphasis is on the four skills/modules—listening, speaking, reading
and writing—with writing given the most emphasis. e Soft Skills program
is oered in English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. e students learn
grammar rules and new vocabulary. ey write answers to reading and listening
comprehension questions and also take a written test. e students are trained
in spelling and punctuation at the level of word and sentence, with later empha-
sis on content and organization.
In the Communication and Soft Skills program in English, the modules
dene the various principles of communication and demonstrate its importance
using the four skills. e objective of the written skills module is to enable the
students to link spoken words and thoughts to writing, demonstrate the impor-
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tance of writing without errors, and discuss the process and result of a written
work. e students are given ample time during the course to practice writing
with precision, accuracy, and clarity of thought. e learners are monitored
closely by the faculty, who guide them to successfully process their ideas. ey
practice writing through such tasks as narrating stories; drafting letters, emails,
and reports; writing their resumes and curriculum vitae; writing book reports,
reviews, personal stories, job applications, news reports, etc.
e University of Madras has recently (July 2010) outsourced this program
to a private educational company. As a University Coordinator for this pro-
gram, I have control over what is taught. On behalf of the university, I prescribe
the syllabus and monitor the company’s tutoring; University faculties evaluate
the examination given by the company faculty. us far, the program has been
successful, and I have received many positive responses from the students.
PROPOSED/UNFULFILLED AMBITIONS IN
REGARD TO STUDENT LITERACY/WRITING
1. Training in writing for M.Phil. and PhD students: e students enrolled
in the Master of Philosophy (pre-doctoral degree) and PhD (doctoral)
in various science, arts, and humanities courses at the University of Ma-
dras do not have a separate training program for writing skills, and their
writing activity is limited to writing dissertations with the guidance of
respective research supervisors. A program related to writing for these
research students would be an ambitious venture for any member of fac-
ulty here, and eorts are being made to draft a program that combines
purposeful and original writing with precise and orderly presentation.
2. Writing and translation: e Department of English is conceiving plans
for a program for Writing and Translation in consultation with the au-
thorities of the university and other volunteering members from aliat-
ing colleges of the University of Madras.
3. Technical writing and content development: To prepare materials such as
websites, user manuals, training manuals, reports, proposals, etc., there
is a huge demand for technical writers in software companies, nan-
cial institutions, and many other organizations. UOM plans to conduct
courses in the above program shortly for students across all disciplines, in
collaboration with interested professional and educational institutions in
India and abroad, particularly with a corporation in the US
4. Publishing: ere is a lacuna in the publishing industry in India due to
a shortage of copy editors, proof readers, etc. is area requires excellent
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writing skills, error detection and correction skills, and reading compre-
hension. Opportunities are aplenty in Chennai itself. UOM in collabo-
ration with leading publishing companies plans to launch a program on
publishing in consultation with experts in the university and aliating
colleges.
5. Translation: this is an up-and-coming enterprise as part of the publish-
ing industry. UOM has separate departments for Tamil literature, Tamil
language, Telugu, Kannada, Hindi, and Sanskrit, as well as programs for
French, Spanish, Italian and German. Eorts are being made to make
translation an academic discipline. e faculty has given suggestions on
how to accommodate translation into the relevant university curricula.
6. E-publishing: A combination of publishing and technical writing will
be oated for the students of UOM in future to train them to enrich
their occupational and professional skills. Writing practice related to E-
publishing alone will be a focal point of this program.
7. Writing for the screen: Chennai, home of UOM, is known for produc-
tion of lms of international quality. ere are opportunities for students
to step into the movie industry if they master this form of writing at
UOM. A proposal has been submitted to the Asian College of Journal-
ism and the Tamil Nadu Film Institute in Chennai for a possible joint
venture to oat a course on Script Writing for the students of UOM and
her aliated colleges.
NOTE
1. e author wishes to thank the individuals at the University of Madras whom he
interviewed regarding writing across disciplines at this university. ese interviews are
listed in the References.
REFERENCES
Arasu, V. Personal Interview. 13 July 2010.
Arumugam. M. Personal Interview. 20 September 2010.
Beulah,T. Personal Interview. 17 September 2010.
Gajendran, A. (1998). Transforming Dalit Politics.Seminar,471, 24-27.
Guru, G. (1998). e Politics of Naming.Seminar,471, 14-17.
Hunter, W. W. (1886). e Imperial Gazetteer of India, Volume IX, 2nd ed.
London: Trubner & Co.
Karunanidhi, S. Personal Interview. 15 September 2010.
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Leo, A. Personal Interview. 18 September 2010.
Mahalingam, T.V. (1974).Early South IndianPaleography. Madras: University
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Murugan. E. Personal Interview. 30 September 2010.
Narayanan, S. Personal Interview. 9 September 2010.
Ravindran, G. Personal Interview. 15 August 2010.
University of Madras. (2001).University of Madras: e Calendar, e Madras
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of Excellence. University of Madras. Retrieved from http://www.unom.ac.in
Venkataramanan.D. Personal Interview.19 September 2010