Chancellor's Message

A university is judged, in the end, by what its graduates do with what they were taught. On that measure Annamalai has reason to be proud and reason to be restless. Our alumni run district hospitals, teach in village schools, build bridges, argue cases and farm better than their parents did. They also, too often, leave the delta. Changing that is the work of the next decade.

I came to this office after thirty years of teaching medicine. What struck me first at Annamalai was not the size of the campus or the age of the laboratories — both of which are modest — but the seriousness of the teaching. Classes are small. Teachers know their students. When a student falls behind, somebody notices.

That is a fragile thing, and it is easily lost. It survives only if the university keeps appointing teachers who care more about being understood than about being cited, and if it keeps admitting students on what they can do rather than on who their parents are.

I would ask three things of everyone who studies or works here. Be honest in small matters, because small matters are where character is formed. Ask the question you are afraid will sound stupid, because that is the question the rest of the class is also afraid to ask. And when you have what you came for, send something back — a scholarship, a job, an afternoon a month.