About the Department

Brief History:
BriefHistory:The department of Physiology of City College, Kolkata is the one of the oldest department under the University of Calcutta achieving the glory of running B.Sc., Honours course successfully in West Bengal, India. It was started from the session 1964-65, although the subject Physiology was taught as a general (pass) subject before this time.

At present the department has five fulltime faculties holding the positions of an Associate Professor, four Assistant Professor and three SACT faculties. There are one full-time and one casual laboratory assistants.

Every year, 45 students get the opportunity for studying three-year Physiology Honours degree course and more than 100 students get admission for general course with the Physiology as one of the subsidiary subjects. The overall performance of our students is excellent.

Overview:
At present the department has separate laboratories for both Honours and general students. There are laboratories like Histology, Biochemistry and Experimental Physiology. Experiments are done on both human and animal subjects. There are separate computer room, seminar library, seminar room and a small conference room. Beside tight schedule of holding theoretical and practical classes the department performs several activities like:

• Annual prize distribution ceremony of the department and scientific lecture in the memory of Dr. J. N. Mukherjee, founder and ex-Head of the department of Physiology. Dr. J. N. Mukherjee memorial award (a silver medal) is conferred to the student of Physiology honours securing highest marks in his/her honours subject in final examination. For this purpose a fund was created by the faculties of the department. The memorial lecture is delivered by an eminent scientist mostly an ex-student of the department.
• Publication of quarterly wall magazine, Neo-Physiologist, which reflects the current trends in physiology as well as the thinking of our students.
• An educational excursion and project work for the 6th SEM honours students.
• Regular parent-teacher meeting for evaluating the progress of the student.
• Departmental seminar and class test.
• Regular interaction with our ex-students, who have earned international reputation in the scientific arena. Recently, two of our ex-students, Dr. Birendranath Mullick of J.N.U., New Delhi and Dr. Bhaskar Saha, National Centre for Cell Science, Pune got the S.S. Bhatnagar Award.

• Names of Programmes/Courses offered: B.Sc. (Honours and General)
• Names of Interdisciplinary courses and the departments/units involved: Nil
• Annual/Semester/Choice-Based Credit System (program-wise): Choice-Based Credit System
• Participation of the department in the courses offered by other departments: Participation in teaching Physiology (General subject) with B.Sc. Honours courses in Zoology, Botany and students of B.Sc. General stream.
• Courses in collaboration with other universities, industries, foreign institutions, etc.: Nil
• Details of courses/programs discontinued (if any) with reasons: Nil
• Student-Teacher Ratio (program-wise): 163 [64 (Hons.) + 109 (Gen.)]: 8 (20.37:1)

Ex-Teachers:

• 
  Dr. Jagadananda Mukherjee
• 
  Prof. Jogesh Chandra Dutta
• 
  Prof. Gopal Chandra Ghosh
• 
  Dr. Bimal Kumar Mondal
  
  
• 
  Dr. Sumantra Chanda
  
  
• 
  Dr. M. A. Rahaman
  
  
• 
  Prof. Jyotirindra Kumar Ghosh
• 
  Dr. Pranabes Nath
  
  
• 
  Dr. Mukul Kanti Manna
  
  
• 
  Dr. Moitrayee Chakraborty
  
  
• 
  Dr. Biswajit Saha
• 
  Dr. Tapan Kumar Ghosh
• 
  Dr. Swades De

Infrastructure:
Department of Physiology has one ICT enabled classrooms, five well equipped laboratories, one projectors, a departmental seminar library with more than 279 Books. The Department is rich with modern equipment to carry on practical prescribed by syllabus as well as for additional projects. The list of equipments include the following:

• Compound Microscopes
• Digital Balances
• Centrifuge
• Colorimeter
• Hot Air Oven
• pH Meter
• Microtome
• Haemocytometer
• Anthropometric kits
• Spirometer
• Blood group kit
• Haemoglobinometer
• Globe thermometer
• Hygrometer
• Sphygmomanometer and Stethoscope
• Skinfold Caliper
• Noise level meter
• Dry and wet thermometer

Distinctiveness:

• One of the oldest Biological Science departments in College.
• Excellent Infrastructure for Under Graduate Course.
• Student Mentoring System to help them academically and in co-curricular and extracurricular activities.
• Caters to the needs of Slow Learners and Advanced Learners.
• Conducts Continuous Evaluation through class tests, Assignments, etc.
• Arranges curriculum based Field Visits for both the Honours students.

Best Practices:

• Student Seminars
• Individual Mentoring
• Field Visits
• Projects
• Use of ICT tools
• Regular Assessments
• Additional Practicals

Students' Performance:
The students of our department have established themselves in various parts of the world and have earned themselves recognition in the world stage.

• Two of our ex-students are Bhatnagar awardees-
  1. Prof. Birendranath Mallick (Ex professor of JNU, New Delhi)
  2. Dr. Bhaskar Saha( Scientist, NCCS, Pune)
• Ex-Prof. Deb Kumar Chakraborty (IIT, Guwahati)
• Prof. Dibakar Chakrabarty (BITS Pilani, Goa)
• Dr. Subir Das (National Institute of Design, Paldi, Ahmadabad)
• Prof. Amal Bera (IIT, Madras)
• Prof. Somnath Ganguly (Calcutta University)
• Prof. DebasisBandopadhyay(Calcutta University)
• Prof. Sanjit Dey (Calcutta University)
• Dr Subhash Haldar (Bose Institute)