Newman College, Thodupuzha

Newman College is a Catholic institution of higher education in Thodupuzha, Kerala, India, administered by the Diocese of Kothamangalam. It is a leading college in the Idukki District, with over 1500 students, 66 teaching staff, and 36 non-teaching staff.

Name

The college is named after John Henry Newman. Newman was a leader of the Oxford Movement in nineteenth century England and one of the most distinguished Anglican converts to Catholicism. He founded the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in Birmingham and later became a Cardinal. He was one of the leading nineteenth century theologians, a great scholar deeply interested in education, and author of many works, including "The Idea of a University". His beatification was declared by Pope Benedict XVI in Birmingham on 19 September 2010.

Controversies

The college is best known internationally for an incident in 2010. On 4 July 2010 Professor T J Joseph was attacked and had his arm severed by Islamic radicals claiming that a punctuation exercise he had set in an examination was insulting to Islam. Though the college raised 600,000 rupees for his medical care, he was on 4 September dismissed from the college's employment on the grounds that he had "hurt the feelings of a community" and caused a "loss of goodwill to the Church".

In August 2015, Mahatma Gandhi University, Syndicate initiated disciplinary action against the Principal and Management of the college. Grievance redressal committee of the University found that the college denied admission to a poor student as he could not pay huge amount of money as donation. The Syndicate observed that the Principal of the college is "flouting University directions from time to time and functioning irregularly".