DEPARTMENT OF GEOLOGY
Establishment:
Professor Pratip Kumar Mukherjee, the founder Principal of Durgapur Government College, being an eminent Earth Scientist took the initiative to introduce Geology teaching programme in this college. In the year 1972 the dream finally came true, and the Department started its journey as an undergraduate teaching department under the stewardship of Professor Gauri Shankar Ghatak. As a recognition to the successful teaching performance over a decade the Department was upgraded to the status of the Postgraduate Department of The University of Burdwan(the then affiliating University) in 1983, and is presently a Postgraduate Geology Department under the affiliation of Kazi Nazrul University, Asansol. In the year 2004 the department came under the FIST Programme of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Since its inception, this department has been blessed with batches of brilliant students. Consistent good performance of the students in the University examinations and national level competitive examinations bears the signature of the academic standard of the Department. Congenial work culture blended with enthusiasm of the young brigade and experience of the senior faculty members plays the key role in the development of the Department.
A student organization, Association for the Culture of Earth Sciences (ACES) was founded on 8th February, 1989 mainly to encourage the juvenile minds to explore different aspects of Earth Sciences beyond the formal framework of academic curriculum. Geolozine, the biennial journal of the Association provides the budding geologists of this department with a platform for expressing their ideas. The students are specially trained in the procedure of writing research and review articles; are also exposed to the concept of plagiarism, the most serious intellectual offence. This process of generating creative content not only introduces them to the art of critical reading of books and research publications but also exposes to research, another career option.
The department is committed to disseminate the best possible education to its students, and always try to do justice to its reputation. Achieving a target cannot be the destination, this department believes in fixing new target to move forward.
Programmes Offered
The Department presently offers the following programmes under the affiliation of Kazi Nazrul University:
Add on Courses
The Department has also started offering Add on Courses for students of all Departments since the academic session 2023-2024.
Teaching and Research
The department is committed to disseminate the best possible education to its students, and always try to do justice to its reputation. For this Department achieving a target is never its ultimate destination, this department believes in fixing new target to move forward. Besides the conventional class-room teaching, students are exposed to the real time problems during their compulsory field training programmes. The students are always encouraged for regular peer discussion, which helps them in identification of their own gaps in understanding. The beginners are introduced to the real life experiences of an Earth Scientist and different aspects of the subject through film shows. This helps in developing interest about the subject in the juvenile minds. The Department and its faculty members continuously mentor the students during their regular course of study and special care is taken for comparatively weaker students so that they can compete with others easily. The healthy mentor-mentee relationship by constant encouragement of the faculty members and ability of the students to express their feelings help a lot in progress of the students. Faculty members are actively involved in research activities and also completed/ongoing research projects funded by Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. Faculty members have research collaborations with reputed institutes and regularly publish research articles in SCI and SCOPUS indexed indexed journals.
DBT STAR COLLEGE SCHEME
The Department is one of the participating departments under the DBT STAR COLLEGE SCHEME of the institution and has been organizing new experiments, workshops, hands on training programmes, seminars, invited lectures and interactive sessions, laboratory staff training programmes and several other initiatives since September 2022 focussed on the skill enhancement of students, faculty members and staff. Several equipment have been procured along with desktop computers to strengthen the undergraduate teaching process under the scheme.