Jadavpur University has to “reach out” to its former students in a “sincere and structured way” if it intends to scale up the quantum of cooperation from former students, many said on the occasion of JU’s first-ever Alumni Day.

Among the former students who spoke were Tapan Misra, former director of the Space Applications Centre and Physical Research Laboratory in ISRO, and Debanjan Chakrabarti, director of the British Council in east and Northeast India.

JU has to realise that merely celebrating Alumni Day won’t foster an effective bond with former students, they said.

Chakrabarti, who graduated from JU’s English department, advocated a dedicated drive to reach out to former students throughout the year using a designated team just as the UK universities do.

“In British universities, they have a dedicated team of professionals in their alumni cell who connect with their former students around the year...,” said Chakrabarti.

Misra, a former student of electronics and telecommunication engineering department, said JU cannot run its alumni cell “amateurishly”.

“Networking with alumni is a serious business and the university has to wake up to this reality...,” said Misra.

The university, which has been encountering a funds crunch owing to a depleting contribution from the central and state governments and a fee structure which is the lowest in the country, has begun approaching the former students to overcome the crisis.

What JU has just started doing is being pursued by the IITs and the institutes worldwide for the years.

Observing the Alumni Day was one such outreach activity of the university

On the occasion of Alumni Day, JU held a panel discussion on the topic — Bonding bridges and fostering excellence — which was attended by Chakrabarti, Misra and Arnab Basu, advisory leader at PwC India and Sudeshna Mukhopadhyay, vice-president at Havells India.

Amitava Datta, the JU pro-vice chancellor who heads the alumni cell, said: “We are making a serious effort to reach out to the students and seek their cooperation in various ways.”

Three former students, Manoj Kothari, a former billiards champion who graduated from the mechanical engineering department, Ranjit Chakrabarti, the president of Global Jadavpur University Alumni Foundation, and Bashabi Frazer, who graduated from the English department in 1977, were felicitated by JU on Saturday.