History

Annamalai University was founded in 1928 by Raja Sir Annamalai Chettiar, a philanthropist and patron of Tamil letters who believed that the Cauvery delta deserved a university of its own — one that would train the engineers, physicians, teachers and civil servants the region needed without sending its young people to Madras.

The first classes met in Chidambaram, a few streets from the Nataraja temple, in rooms lent by the town. Within a decade the university had moved to its permanent campus at Annamalai Nagar, opened a teachers' college, and laid out the botanical garden that still borders the science departments.

Nearly a century later, Annamalai teaches more than twelve thousand students across ten faculties. The rented rooms are gone; the habit of teaching in small groups, with a teacher who knows every student by name, is not.