The Women Development Cell, Nirma University, recently organised the first lecture under the Distinguished Lecture Series, on ‘Towards a Gender Sensitive Campus’. The lecture was held on Saturday at the Institute of Law campus.
The Distinguished Lecture Series, being conducted under the aegis of the Women Development Cell, aims to create an environment of learning from the rich experience of expert resource persons in the field of gender issues and women development. These lectures will be conducted every month and will be hosted by the constituent institutes of Nirma University. Institute of Law took the initiative to organise the first lecture under this distinguished lecture series.
The resource person for the maiden lecture was Dr. Ranjana Harish. Dr. Harish was formerly the Professor & Head, Department of English, School of Languages, Gujarat University. She has to her credit, the establishment of sexual harassment prevention cell of Gujarat University, with 280 branches. The lecture was attended by the members of the WDC, Nirma University as well as several students from the constituent institutes.
Dr. Harish focused on treating issues of women’s rights as matters of human rights. While India has come a long way in recognising women’s rights, it still has to go a long way in humanising the issue. The soul of our laws, the Constitution of India, has always been gender sensitive. However, no matter how many laws exist, the issue of gender sensitivity needs to be internalised. Dr. Harish gave various instances of gender insensitivity on campuses through her experience as a Founder Chair for Women Development Cell and reinforced the need for such a session. The session was followed by a question and answer round and concluded with a vote of thanks.