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Three years back, Union Christian College decided to have a vision
document that would consolidate and give direction and focus to
institutional development. It was expected that the document would be a
blueprint of strategic planning for the future, and that it would be
ready within months. The document is still in the making today. Several
drafts have been prepared, considered and discarded. This has been a
long program of conceptualization, revision and clarification. It has
now been realized that developing an institutional vision is more than
planning for the future. It involves deep and intimate encounter with
the essential elements of the institution. This is not an easy task. The
peripheral priorities that accumulate in time must be sorted out and
separated from the core values that define the historical mission of the
institution. During these three years there has been an intense debate
among the college community. This debate has been sometimes dominated by
frustration and impatience. But more often the democratic impulse has
prevailed. It has been realized that the vision for a future must rest
on a true appreciation of core values that reach back to the founding
impulses. Institutional beginnings need to be understood through a
process of uncompromising interrogation. This inevitably leads to the
identification of the elemental make-up of the institution and an
encounter with its historical and political role.
Union Christian College was established in 1921 as a venture in
inter-denominational co-operation among three churches. One more church
joined in a participatory role at a later point of the history of the
college. The college was conceived as an ecumenical initiative. This is
a factor of essential relevance because ecumenism was hardly a natural
instinct in the 1920s. In India, this was a period when Christian
denominations were no better than warring factions. It required radical
imagination to conceive a trans-denominational project. Members of
constituent churches had decided to work together. A very simple
fellowship mode of administration defined the working and management of
the institution. This was a radical experiment in terms of the pristine
Christian values that it represented.
Union Christian College was an indigenous initiative. It was the
first Christian college in India started on Indian initiative. This was
a remarkable element of the history of the college. In colonial India,
Christian identity clearly carried an imperial bias. All the Christian
institutions had been founded by the British. Union Christian College,
however, took up the mission of fostering among the students the spirit
of healthy nationalism. Accordingly, the college chose to invite Mahatma
Gandhi to the campus in 1925. Gandhi, obviously impressed by the
political stance of the institution, indicated in the Visitors’ Diary
that he had been “delighted with the ideal situation” that prevailed
here. The college continued to host leaders of the freedom struggle,
reinforcing its political position and nationalistic bias.
While being fiercely nationalistic, the founders conceived the
college as a project of international co-operation. British teachers
worked in the college, not as privileged representatives of the colonial
dispensation, but as people who respected independence and shared a
broad-minded cosmopolitanism.
In retrospect, it is not difficult to realize that the ecumenical and
nationalistic character of the college embodies a political identity
that can never be disowned. These core values are as relevant today as
they had been in the 1920s. These values carried radical resonance in
those early years. This radical vision must continue to shape the vision
of the college. Ecumenism must be logically extended to a form of gritty
secularism which can hold its own against the impulses of religious
fundamentalism and revivalism.
Union Christian College took up the social goal of: to be an
institution enabling its students to strive for social justice, and the
uplift of poor and the underprivileged sections of the society. But the
rapid emergence of globalization and its impacts on the socio-economic
structure came in between, and it necessitates us to understand it in
all their implications. This is indeed a difficult task. The lines are
not as clearly drawn as in the past. Economic structures are difficult
and complicated. The new vision for the college must carry the original
radical impulse. Union Christian College is still engaged in the task of
defining itself against the new context. The general pattern for
institutions of higher learning has been to follow the entrepreneurial
model. Christian institutions have readily accepted the new
self-financing philosophy. It would have been easy for Union Christian
College to fall in line and develop a vision that would transform itself
into an economically profitable proposition. But the college has chosen
to keep itself engaged in a debate involving core values. Plans for the
future will not be controlled by the promise of profit. The original
ethos, history and political essence of the college will prevail. The
strategic plans for the future of the college will be a matter of
accepting social controls that give meaning and character to Christian
institutions of higher learning.
*The title was suggested by Dr. Rita Pullium, Vice president, United
Board NY who has great admiration for UCC.
The paper was categorized under the following section
Strategic Planning: vision, mission and goal setting
Sub topics:
1. paring aside the peripherals to find the core and essence of the
Institution;
2. Ethos, identity and image: knowing your institution inside out.
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