A group of talented young faculties having a firm commitment along with the top brilliant students constituted the department of sociology at Jagannath University. This department has – though as a newly established university started offering higher education under the semester system since 2005– already marked their ascendancy in academic and extracurricular activities among and within the depar
tments at this university. This university has a three phases’ development history that started from school, 1858 to college, 1884 and then the full-fledged university, 2005. Located under the faculty of social sciences, this department has offered graduate program since 1968 and also offer undergraduate program since 1992. There are plans to introduce PhD and M. Phil program in the near future to develop intensive research base in the realm of Sociology. The academic programs and courses of the department designed and developed with an acute vision to explore the various dynamics of world traditions like history, culture, politics, socio-economic status, market economy and their changing nature particularly having a special attention to the experience of Bangladesh. Living in a modern world with huge pleasures and a lot of sufferings, it is a moral obligation to the teachers to develop a critical and pragmatic insight for the students so that they can handle any kind of circumstances. The Departments runs its academic programs based on traditional syllabus for long time. With an aim to keep in touch the students with updated and contemporary sociological issues, in the year of 2008 the Department of Sociology decided to update and review the syllabus. A committee has been formed headed by the Chair of the Department and comprised of other members to review and reorganize the whole syllabus from pragmatic point of view and publish a new time worthy syllabus. When the primary task tended to complete, the committee shared the experiences with other faculty members of the Department and experts and incorporated valuable comments whether required. Throughout the process of review, revision and regeneration, it has been tried heart and soul to avoid overlapping of topics and chapters, western biases. To review, reorganize and regeneration of the syllabus, the committee has primarily consulted all available syllabuses from reputed domestic and foreign universities. The new syllabus and the courses are structured and re-structured mainly based on some points such as courses that ensure the basic introductory knowledge of the students on ‘mainstream’ social sciences like Economics, Political Sciences and Anthropology. Secondly the courses germane to development and contemporary issues focused on theories and approaches have been included in the syllabus. Thirdly, courses concentrated on research and methodological issues. Overall the syllabus has been developed with the concern to follow a multidisciplinary approach to achieve maximum objectivity. In addition the considerations of job market opportunities and employability of its students also weighed heavily with those developing the courses for Department of Sociology. We have considered the prospect of job market opportunities for the students are more likely in the domain of policies, programs and projects related to gender and development, human development, human rights, civil society, media and mass communications. Finally it has been assumed that the efforts will provide a sound theoretical and practical knowledge on Sociology to the students. The committee is eager to acknowledge the contributions of the members of committee of courses and eminent sociologists: Professor Dr. Rangalal Sen, Professor S. Aminul Islam and Professor Dr. A I Mahbub Uddin Ahmed for their each and every intellectual efforts.
