BNU Administration Seeks Time To Reconsider Departments' Merger

Lahore: The Beaconhouse National University (BNU) administration sought some time from the students of School of Liberal Arts (SLA) to deliberate their decision of merging SLA with the School of Social Sciences (SSS) and said they will call the board of governors' (BoG) meeting earlier than schedule to resolve the issue.


BNU Vice Chancellor Sartaj Aziz invited a delegation of students on Thursday and urged them to end their protest, adding that the administration would address their grievances in the BoG meeting, which will be called in April instead of its scheduled time in June. BNU Registrar Farzana Shahid was also present in the meeting. The SLA students had launched a protest inside the campus on Wednesday after the administration announced the merger of SLA into SSS and the removal of SLA Dean Naveed Shahzad.

The students told the reporters that the merger was illogical as the two departments were not relevant to each other in any way and Naveed Shahzad was the most competent and qualified person for the curriculum they were studying. They said they would not let her be terminated as the department had come up to this level because of her untiring efforts.

However, Sartaj Aziz said that the university will listen to the students' demands and that Naveed Shahzad was not being terminated but they were promoting her. The SLA students who met the VC included Shahrukh Naveed, Alizeh Khalid, Hasham bin Munawar, Fahad Noor. They said that the administration showed a positive sign by listening to their demands, including withdrawing the decision to merge the two departments and keeping their favourite teachers.

Request: They also said they had requested the administration to include some people from the field of arts in the BoG as the university claimed to specialise in liberal arts yet the board mostly comprised economists who had nothing to do with their subjects.

A student said the VC also talked about the possibility of merging SLA with the School of Mass Communication, however, they told him that keeping SLA as an independent department was a better option.

Termination: "We also requested our vice chancellor not to terminate Naveed Shahzad because she is the one who developed the department to this advanced level and is experienced in the subjects we are studying. The VC has assured us that our teacher will be kept," he asserted. The students said some of them wanted to continue their protest and boycott classes instead of giving the administration the time sought, adding, however, they will decide their future course of action after handing over a written charter of demands to the administration today (Friday). Daily times