Naima Khatoon Gulrez, the principal of Aligarh Muslim University’s Women’s College since 2014, has been appointed as the university's first woman Vice-Chancellor. She is learnt to have taken charge as the new V-C Monday evening. The AMU Court had shortlisted three candidates for the post and forwarded the names to President Droupadi Murmu for final selection last November. Professor Muzaffar Uruj Rabbani, former Dean, Faculty of Medicine, AMU, and Professor Faizan Mustafa, V-C, Chanakya National Law University, Patna, were the other frontrunners for the post. Sources said Gulrez's appointment was cleared by the Election Commission (EC) with the condition that it would not be publicised and no political mileage would be drawn from it. The EC's go-ahead was communicated to the Education Ministry on April 9. A PhD in psychology from AMU, the new V-C was appointed as a lecturer in the same department in 1988, before being elevated as professor in 2006. She continued there before joining as principal of the Women’s College in 2014. She also taught at the National University of Rwanda, Central Africa, for an academic year, and was appointed the Director, Centre for Skill Development & Career Planning, AMU, in October 2015. She has authored/ co-authored/ edited six books and published a number of papers in journals of national and international repute. Her appointment comes after a controversy over the selection procedure adopted. As first reported by The Indian Express on November 3 last year, complaints were raised pertaining to a conflict of interest in Gulrez being shortlisted for the post, as her husband, the acting V-C Prof Mohammad Gulrez, chaired the meeting that included her in the list.
