The Department of Chemistry, Sir Theagaraya College, Chennai – 21, was established as early as 1950. The Department was headed by Prof.G.Venkateswarulu when founded and it got upgraded in to a full fledged one, in the year 1971, with the sole VISION of imparting value and quality education to its students with special emphasis on ethical values of human life. It offers CHEMISTRY main to over 150 students for whom Physics and Maths / Zoology form the allied subjects during their I and II years of studies respectively. The Department of Chemistry also offers ancillary subjects in Chemistry to around 200 students of disciplines such as Zoology, Botany, Physics and Mathematics. In addition, it takes pride in offering M.Sc Chemistry to its Shift-II students. It is a well knitted and the most sought after department with adequate facilities. It has, at present 3 (in place of 8) dynamic, dedicated, young and vibrant faculty members, who strive hard to imparting good and quality education to the students. Here, in the Department of Chemistry, in addition to regular classroom teaching of the subjects, in order to enhance the awareness levels, overall competencies and socio economic status of the students and make them responsible citizens, field visits and sensitization of students to issues of global concerns, are being done through value education. The students are also being trained in “Soft Skills” in order to help them become employable in the Job Market by being wholesome and competitive. Over and above, the staffs of the department are also engaged in active research in terms of UGC projects and guiding research scholars under the “Part time – external” provisions. They evince a good quantum of interest in publishing research articles, attending seminars, symposia, etc., in addition to meeting the academic requirements of the department, which is marching towards achieving excellence. To enlist a few, Dr. A. Rajendran, Assistant Professor and Dr. P. Pazhanisamy, Assistant Professor are successful in getting a UGC funded Major Research Project each. They have published quality research articles in reputed, peer reviewed National and International Journals.

Most of the students hail from an educationally backward, socially neglected, deprived and disadvantaged part of Chennai. They are entitled for Scholarships from the Govt. annually. They are being offered with quality education and excellent educational ambience.

In terms of Educational resources, for the two way process of effective teaching and learning, the department has adequate laboratory facilities such as workspace [student/lab space ratio] glasswares, chemicals, equipments and a well equipped departmental library, in addition to the central library of the college.

The Department has 4- working labs of moderate size, 1-Physical Chemistry Laboratory to conduct electrical experiments, 1-balance room, a part of which accommodates a part of the departmental library and two small preparation rooms. The department library has about 1300 books at the U.G. level and around 175 books at the P.G. level with both lending and reference options to students, in addition to two periodicals being subscribed. It also has two advanced computers with INTERNET facility at its disposal for use by both teachers and students of the Department.

In addition to the regular and routine but still effective Chalk and Talk method of teaching, the department strongly believes in the exploration and exploitation of modern tools for effective communication and better teaching. It owns and uses a very advanced LCD projector. With LCD, use of animation enabled power point presentation for diagrams, tables, flow charts, numerical problems, derivations, complex and complicated concepts, etc. helps the students to understand anything and everything with ease and help them in a big way to become thorough knowledge wise. With these, it is hoped strongly that these students have an edge over others in terms of becoming wholesome, competitive and employable.

Faculty Profile:

Sl.NO	Photo			Name of the Faculty, Qualification & Designation	Profile
1				Dr. R. Ilango, M.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D Associate Professor and Head	View
2				Dr. A. Rajendran, M.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D., Assistant Professor	View
3				Dr. P. Pazhanisamy, M.Sc., M.Phil., Ph.D Assistant Professor	View