Surendranath Law College values its faculty members and believes in building a long-term professional relationship. The college has rightly recognised that faculty retention is a significant concern for educational institutions, especially as talented faculty members are integral to maintaining academic standards, reputation, and student success. The college has adopted various measures to provide academic and research support to nurture their career goals and aspirations.
In the field of Research and Development, the college has taken several faculty retention measures -
1. Support for Professional Development: The college facilitates and encourages faculty members to participate in workshops, seminars, conferences, capacity development courses and training programs that enhance their teaching skills, research capabilities, and overall professional growth. Eligible candidates are granted permission and support for engaging in in-service PhD. Such candidates are also given reduced-teaching and administrative duty obligations so that they can fruitfully balance work and research during PhD. Faculty members are given ample opportunity to fulfil the terms and conditions towards Career Advancement Scheme (CAS) as prescribed by UGC regulations. They are given adequate teaching hours and ample opportunities to participate in various forms of Professional Development activities.
2. Provision of Research Infrastructure and Collaborative Research Opportunities: Faculty members are given full liberty to use research infrastructure such as ICT infrastructure (computers, smart class equipment, printers etc) and library resources (books, journals, e-resources), audio-visual aids and equipment in their teaching programmes as well as for academic research. Faculty members also have the opportunity to collaborate with partner organisations under MoU, to organise academic programmes for knowledge sharing, exchange and expansion of professional networks.
3. Publication Support: The college encourages faculty members to produce original research papers that can be published in reputed peer-reviewed journals. To provide an enabling support environment, faculty members are provided full access to journals, digital libraries and legal database such as the SCC-Online. The college is in the process of purchasing a Plagiarism Detection subscription/license for use of faculty members. This is expected to ensure ethical academic research practice in the college.
4. Leave benefits for Academic and Research Work: The College grants ‘On-duty’ leave to faculty members who may be participating in training/seminars/conferences outside the college. This allows faculty members to focus solely on learning and achieve the best outcomes from training programmes. All faculty members are granted a dayoff every week, as a ‘p-day’, or a preparatory leave which can be used for study and research work.
5. Research Autonomy & Recognition for Research Achievements Faculty members are given autonomy in research so that they can pursue their own research interests and develop their research agendas and goals. Apart from academic research, faculty members are encouraged to advance their knowledge and training in the field of music, dance, theatre, art and sports also. The college has established a culture of appreciation for research excellence and any achievements of faculty members. Celebrating such achievements are expected to motivate faculty members to strive further for excellence in their academic research and other interests.
6. Financial Support to faculty members: Faculty members are kept updated about research grants and funding available from national and international agencies that can provide financial support in their research initiatives. The college advances funds to finance academic events held in the college so that faculty members do not face financial constraints in executing co-curricular programmes. To facilitate participation of faculty members in academic events such as seminars and conferences, the faculty members can claim reimbursement of travel fare for Economy AC 3-tier round-trip train fare for participation outside Kolkata and local taxi/bus/train fare for participation within Kolkata. The travel fare is re-imbursed provided the participant submits original travel bills/tickets along with participation certificates.