Stephania - really?

Enough has been said about 'Stephania' by people more experienced than me. My first introduction to the hoopla around 'Stephania' was an article by Shashi Tharoor for Delhi Times where he wrote about what made Stephens special. Among things he said was the fact that in St. Stephen's, religion and region did not matter and the pursuit of knowledge and intellect was given precedence over scoring marks, rote-learning and the like. The merits and demerits of his arguments, and whether they are valid over a quarter century after he left college, is something I do not find myself qualified enough to comment on. Instead, what I can comment on is what difference I see in St. Stephen's today from other colleges of Delhi University.

The idea of teaching in St. Stephen's going beyond the textbooks and examinations is slowly, and surely, dying out. Not to say that the blame can be rested on the faculty of St. Stephen's College - it would be more appropriate to blame the suffocating nature of the DU syllabus since it leaves colleges with little time to pursue their own charters. Education in DU is being turned into a McAloo tikki burger - you get the same taste wherever you go. Whether that's a good thing or not (I think it's abominable) is kept for later discussions.

What I argue in this piece is that what is unique to St. Stephen's College is its small size - 1200 students - studying a large number of courses - 10 in total - across a variety of disciplines. What this results in is greater interaction between different ideas, and this is where I believe our college has the most to benefit from. I hence believe that expanding the number of seats might diminish, if not demolish, this unique advantage that we have.

The difference between previous evocations of Stephania and what I propose is that what I propose is tangible - it can very well be replicated by other colleges. I do not pin-point Stephania on intangibles such as the 'spirit', which is impossible to judge anyway. To conclude this point, I think we have a lot to gain by acknowledging that in a fast-changing world, wherein St. Stephen's is no longer considered the undisputed best arts college in India, we have a lot to gain by foregoing the old connotations of 'Stephania' and recognise what we actually have and then create fora for us to exploit it to the fullest.

As an aside, it is true that the pursuit of innovation in St. Stephen's College has been vanishing. In this context, there would be much merit in arguing that being associated with DU is harming St. Stephen's. There has to be greater room for the college to manage its own syllabus and evaluation parameters.