The College had proposed two Best Practices - Shanti Paath: Environmental Peace and Harmony and Khazana-e-Virasat: Treasure of Heritage of Knowledge, Historical Traditions, Art and Culture in its first Self Study Report (SSR) submitted to NAAC in May 2015. Subsequent to Accreditation, the College in the year 2016-2017 announced these two practices as Best Practices to be pursued and developed over five years. Since then, they have been followed with passionate rigour, energy and enthusiasm. These two practices in 2019-2020, continued to encourage awareness and practices of sustainable development within a holistic vision of the environment and its relation to society, generate environment consciousness and cognizance, sensibility and respect towards heritage and conservation of inheritance. These practices not only encourage ethical and human values but also instill a sense of belonging in the College community.
Best Practice I – Shanti Paath is inspired by the Vedic Shanti Paath that emphasizes on the value and significance of environment, the cosmic system and its inhabitants. The College inspires into its surroundings and its people the desire for environmental peace and harmony and encourages an organic connection with the environment. The College, with its dense green cover and phenomenal biodiversity serves as a laboratory for both observation and practices. It is committed to the optimization of its available material and human resources and inculcation of a life-style that promotes environmental consciousness, conservation of energy and other natural resources. The College regularly conducts Green Audit of its campus and its facilities. Activities in the College are organized around tree census, bird census, butterfly and dragonfly count and a vigorous Waste Management Program. An important step towards Waste Management was taken by the College in 2019-2020 under the slogan of ‘No Waste Leaves the Campus’ through Project Nidaan, a project for Solid Waste Management, initiated by the College’s Centre for Earth Studies. Recycle projects were revamped during the year to create knowledge on waste segregation at source and dedicated repositories were installed for waste collection. A leaf composting machine was installed on campus in addition to the compost pits and bins already present. The College uses leaf litter to make compost, canteen food waste to make organic manure and recycles paper waste in collaboration with the NGO, Greenobin. Several items as College Memorabilia are produced from recycled paper. Electronic and plastic waste is disposed for recycling in collaboration with NGO’s like Chintan, which feeds the income generated into the project of education of street children. The College optimizes its water usage and practices water management through waste water recycling and rain-water harvesting. There are seven water harvesting pits on the campus. The College has its own Green Lab that practices urban farming and grows organic vegetables. This provides a further boost to the College’s efforts and commitment to maintain environmental sustainability and biodiversity.
The College has taken a major initiative towards alternative energy resource, the use of renewable energy by harnessing solar energy. Two solar panels are installed in the two hostels of the College for heating water and the streets of the College are lit by solar lights.
The College campus is an Animal-Friendly campus. There are dogs, cats, peacocks, mongoose, and kites, varieties of migratory birds and rescued birds and animals on the campus that are looked after by the College community. The College’s lush green campus and floral diversity provide a habitat for more than 40 species of birds, 11 species of butterflies and 4 species of dragonflies and damselflies. The biodiversity resource of the College is well-documented and monitored by the sustained efforts of the Centre for Earth Studies and the Department of Environmental Studies through Biodiversity trails and research projects. The Garden Committee of the College and its trained, meritorious gardeners through their expertise and hard labour maintain the green, clean, refreshing environment of the College. The College prepares its own fertilizers and manures to provide nutrition to its gardens, lawns, trees and plants. The ECO Club organizes several programs that add to awareness and sensitization towards environment.
Best Practice II – Khazana-e-Virasat is inspired by the commitment and passion to preserve and conserve the vast resources of historical knowledge inherited in the form of artifacts and documents that can be traced to the beginning of the twentieth century as early as 1904. The College, the first women’s college of the University of Delhi has a history that has intersected the movement for women’s education, the movement for independence and the feminist movement. To preserve, conserve and display its heritage and historical traditions, the College established its own Archive in 2006, thus becoming the only College of the University of Delhi to house its own Archive. To encourage the consciousness of heritage, history, conservation and restoration of tangible and intangible heritage, the Archive was expanded into Museum and Archive Learning Resource Centre in 2015. This fostered a sense of heritage, a sense of belonging to the traditions of the College and the idea of a community and citizenship. The entire College community thus became both the participant and custodian of the shared wealth.
The Museum and Archive Learning Resource Centre (MALRC) captures not only the history but also the cultural and political ethos of the College. There are many fascinating details, interesting moments and events in the life of the College – now in its 96th Year – which deserved to be retrieved, preserved and brought to a larger audience. The commitment of the College to preserve, conserve, digitize, catalogue and house the inheritances on a continual basis and sensitize the College community to its heritage led to the expansion of MALRC, adding another wing for display, projections, seminars, symposiums and research projects. The Museum and Archive features the period 1904-2006 and 2007-2019. It displays rare documents and photographs of the colonial period, the city of Delhi, the history of the College and its transition over time to a modern, progressive institution of liberal arts, adding to its profile over the years by introducing disciplines such as Commerce, Mathematical Science, Computer Science, Multi Media and Mass Communication and Environmental Science. MALRC is a significant addition to the corpus on institutional histories, heritage learning, gender and the city of Delhi and has facilitated researchers, scholars and all such persons who wish to explore these issues. The documents, newspapers and photographs are digitized, conserved, restored and catalogued, making MALRC into one of the gleaming, modern Centre of the College. A few QR (Quick Response) codes with details on selected displayed items have been put up which can be scanned with Smart Phones and which are linked to the College Website.
In 2019-2020, the Museum and Archive Learning Resource Centre continued to attract researchers. In September 2019, a student of Ambedkar University, Delhi researched in MALRC on her Ph.D. Proposal ‘Roads to Motorization: Public Transport, Urban Life, and Mobility in Colonial and Post-Colonial Delhi, c.1880-1960. Research and Photo-Shoot was conducted in September 2019 for Voice of America by Ms. Ritul Joshi to do a story on Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan (formerly Irene Pant, who taught Economics in College in the 1930s). The story was uploaded on YouTube VOA Urdu in October 2019. The research for the book on Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan was done by one of its authors, Deepa Aggarwal in MALRC. The book was published by Penguin/Viking India in June 2019 and was featured in Jaipur Literary Festival 2019.
To sensitize new entrants to the College to values of heritage, conservation and awareness about the history of the College, Heritage Walk of the College is conducted annually as a part of the Student Orientation Program under the aegis of MALRC.
To capture the live heritage and ethos of the College, MALRC brings out a Heritage Calendar annually. In January 2020, it brought out the fifth edition of the Heritage Calendar. Heritage Calendar is proposed to be published every year culminating in the centenary year i.e. 2024.
The College’s endeavour to excite passions, sensibilities and consciousness towards inheritance, heritage and historical knowledge is enshrined in this Best Practice.