Chennai :

A drone, a float, more than a hundred voices joined in song at the stroke of midnight will kick-off the year-long centenary celebrations of Women’s Christian College, the first private women’s college in the city. At the stroke of midnight on July 6, which marks the moment WCC will enter its centenary year, staff, students and alumni of WCC will gather at the campus to sing songs of praise by candle light and take a pledge to commemorate the historic moment.

“We want to celebrate stepping into the 100th year,” says WCC principal Dr Ridling Margeret Waller, who adds that the college has plans for celebrations all through the year.

One of the first events planned for the day – and Waller and her planning committee are keeping their fingers crossed on this one – is a little celebratory cake-cutting with Anna Jacob, who at 100 years, is the oldest living alumnus of the college. “Anna Jacob will celebrate her 100th birthday this July, as her alma mater steps into its 100th year, and that is a cause for celebration. So we want to make it one of the first events,” says Waller.

Events planned for July 6 and 7 include a 100-voice choir of students and alumni, women ranging in age from 19 to 90, celebrating the college and its commitment to the empowerment of women. “The college was set up by women who belonged to Christian missionary societies in Canada, the US and the UK. They left everything they knew to come to an unknown land and liberate women from the shackles of poverty and to empower them with higher education. The motto of the college is ‘Lighted to Lighten’, and as part of that vision started by these missionaries, last year, WCC has adopted a village near Red Hills, where literacy programmes are conducted on a regular basis,” says Waller. “WCC was built on a vision and we need to grow it.”

After the midnight thanksgiving, students will take out a parade on College Road. “We have two floats – the first will feature the seven teachers who were here when the College began, and the second will feature the first batch of 41 students, complete with period costumes,” says Waller. The float will be designed in the facade of Doveton House, one of the oldest and most treasured buildings on the 19-acre campus. The college had moved to the campus in 1916, after functioning for a year in a rented building named Hyde Park. Among the live ‘statues’ of students on the float will be Rukmini Lakshmipathy, a history student here, who went on to join the Indian National Congress and later became the first woman to serve as a minister in the Madras Presidency. Among the teacher statues will be WCC’s founder-principal Dr Miss Eleanor McDougall, who headed the institution till 1935.

Leading the parade will be 30 women bikers from the college, while a hired drone will capture the proceedings from the sky, to be later telecast for alumni who missed the event.

As part of the celebrations, a centenary flag will be hoisted for two days, after which it will be lowered and sent on a journey around the world to cities where WCC alumni reside.

As for Anna Jacob, who lives in Vellore, she has already arrived in Chennai well in time for the celebrations. “Whenever I think of my college, I think of the chapel and the beautiful evening services we used to have there,” says Jacob. Jacob, who belongs to the batch of 1946, completed her intermediate course and missionary training course in WCC, was present at the college alumni homecoming in January this year, which was a curtain-raiser to the centenary celebrations. “It is good to see that some of the buildings that were there when I was – the Clock Tower and Science Block for instance – are still intact.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / by Kamini Mathai ,  TNN / July 05th, 2014