Jadavpur University

The Alumni Association, one of the oldest in the country, was founded in 1921 by the ex-students of National Council of Education.
The teachers– builders of the Association, such as Prof. Hiralal Roy, Prof. Surendra Kumar Roy, Prof. Hem Chandra Dasgupta and others who imbibed the Alumni feeling, established the Alumni (old boys) Association of NCE Bengal in the year 1921. Prof. Hiralal Roy A. B. (Harvard) became its first secretary and Dr. Abinesh Ch. Bhattacharjee, Ph.D. (Berlin) its first present. It was the Alumni who from the earliest days to the period shortly before India’s Independence, regularly arranged travelling fellowships for junior members of the teaching staff for doing doctoral researches in U.K., USA and Germany.
Shri Kiron Roy, who was an alumnus and an ex-student of M.I.T. (Boston), founded his Electrical firm in Calcutta and helped the College of Engineering and Technology in various ways. The alumni of Jadavpur living abroad helped fellow-Jadavpurians to be admitted to various universities and research institutions in Boston, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Cornell, Edinburg, Munich etc.
It is significant that a sizeable portion of the members on the Managing Committee of Jadavpur College, before it become a University, comprised Jadavpurians who had their Engineering diplomas and degrees from N.C.E. itself. Thus the alumni used to have a role in the management, control and development of continuity and perpetuation of the Jadavpur stamp and tradition, strengthening the tie between the old and the new. The Old Boys Home on the campus stood, as it also stands now, as a symbol of this bond of brotherhood.
Within a short time it began to organize sports, musical soirees, exhibitions, conferences and established branches in different parts of the country, and even in U.K. and U.S.A. On the occasion of Silver Jubilee of NCE in 1946 it collected several lakhs for its Alma Mater. It may be mentioned that the famous painter Atul Bose was an alumnus of Jadavpur and donated a lump sum on the occasion. To help the brother students, the Alumni Association introduced several loan scholarships. One of the very helpful activities of the Alumni Association was to secure jobs in industries and organizations for the young Jadavpurians. It was a laudable job in those most difficult days of widespread unemployment.
For the first few years of its existence, the activities of the Alumni Association were mainly educational, practically confined to the guidance of and assistance to the NCE and the development of the BTI (Bengal Technical Institute). The connections of the Alumni Association with the NCE, the BTI and, later, the College of Engineering & Technology (CET) considerably helped these institutions to spread and improve engineering and technological education in India. The NCE was a private organization. Its formation, operation and development had to be funded entirely by public donations, with no Government support. The Alumni Association became a vital factor in the growth of the NCE and development of the CET.