The Dr Rita Jacob Cherian Memorial Endowment Lecture was hosted by the Department of English and conducted online for the first time via Zoom at 5pm on 27 July 2021. Women and Leadership was the theme and Mr Sridhar Ranganathan, co-founder and CEO of Helyxon Healthcare Solutions Pvt Ltd, a medtech company in collaboration with IIT Madras, was invited as the speaker this year. It was attended by staff and students of the Department of English, faculty of the college and a number of her old students, colleagues, friends, associates and family members.
Dr Rita Jacob Cherian joined the faculty of the Department of English, Women’s Christian College, in 1968. She served as Head of the department from 1994 -2003 and as the Principal of WCC from 2003 - 2006. She was an excellent and beloved teacher, known for her erudition and command over language. She set an example of exemplary leadership for women.
Mr Sridhar delivered an insightful lecture on leadership for women, and spoke about how women should step out of their comfort zones, identify their strengths, become role models, encourage equal promoters, break stereotypes, and eliminate destructive criticism, discrimination, self-imposed barriers and hatred. He portrayed women to be strong, with reference to the Bible. According to the book of Genesis, Eve is referred to as a ‘helper’ of Adam, which is a rather weak translation of the term used in Hebrew, ‘ezer kenegdo,’ which means ‘support’ or ‘lifesaver’. Mr Sridhar encouraged women to speak up, stand by their commitments and support their fellow women.
Towards the end of the meet, the participants stayed on to share reminiscences about the wonderful times they had had with Dr Cherian. This was an unexpected and emotional highlight of the evening, as a number of people recollected their sweet memories of the former Principal.
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