jamia millia islamia jmi a central university by an act of parliament in 1988 has come a long way since its inception in 1920 in an interview education times speaks to jmi vice chancellor syed shahid mahdi about the universitys achievements and its future plansinculcating valuesthe university is able to refine the finer values of life in youth by offering courses which directly deal with aesthetics such as mass communication which includes the art of film making and fine arts art education and sculpture as also by involving students in camping adventure sports and other constructive cocurricular activities we have a very active social work department nss and ncc and sports units in the university which channelise youthful energy creatively and aestheticallyresearch activitiesresearch is an ongoing and integral part of higher education all the departments and faculty therein actively engage in research both doctoral and project work in jmi research areas are very widehighlights of jmiduring the past few years persistent efforts have been made by the university for widening collaborations and networking both nationally and internationally i am happy that these efforts have been quite successful jamia has already signed a few memoranda of understanding with several foreign universities which includes university of erfurt and university of applied sciences erfurt these universities are willing to initiate student and faculty exchange particularly in areas such as social work economics islamic studies history and conservationsimilarly the university has paid considerable attention towards professionalising university management a comprehensive management information system mis covering all sectors of university functioning from students admission to examination and employees recruitment to retirement is nearing completion once the system becomes fully operational swift and rational decisionmaking and transparency will be greatly enhanced at all the levelsfurther the university has seriously undertaken the task of curriculum updating and revision as a result an overwhelming majority of the courses offered by jamia have been finetuned with academic and market development in mindnew coursesjamia has already started several new courses during the past two years these include diploma in bioinformatics bsc and msc biotechnology and development communication from the next academic session two new post graduate programmes masters in international business and masters in public administration are being launched by the department of commerce and business studies and department of political science respectively