Team Blitz India
Naima Khatoon, principal of AMU’s women’s college since 2016, has been appointed as Aligarh Muslim University’s ViceChancellor for the next 5 years, the first woman to be appointed to the university’s top position. She is the first woman to hold post in over 100 years.
“The President of lndia, in her capacity as the Visitor of AMU, has been pleased to appoint Professor Naima Khatoon, Professor/Principal, Women’s College, as the Vice-Chancellor of the Aligarh Muslim University for a period of five (5) years from the date on which she enters upon his office or the date on which she completes seventy years of age, whichever is earlier,” the Union education ministry said in a letter to AMU.
The university did not have a fulltime vice chancellor since April 2023 when her predecessor Tariq Mansoor’s term ended. The communication also said that the Election Commission of India has allowed the government to go ahead with the appointment from the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) angle subject to the condition that “no publicity shall be there and no political mileage may be derived from it”.
An alumnus of AMU, Khatoon did her schooling in Odisha and shifted to AMU where, after completing her pre-university degree, she studied psychology at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. She was later awarded PhD in psychology in 1989, according to the AMU website.
