Loyola College, Chennai

Founded in 1925 this institution has morphed into one of India’s most respected undergraduate colleges, reputed for empowering the socially disadvantaged through high-quality education

Sited on a 99-acre verdant campus in the southern port city of Chennai (pop. 4.6 million), with its wide tree-lined pathways, elegant white buildings, steepled Gothic chapel and spacious grounds, Loyola College is a landmark higher education institution of this bustling metropolis. Founded in 1925 by the Rev. Father Francis Bertram and a band of dedicated Jesuits with a first batch of 75 students, this 86-year-old institution has morphed into one of India’s most respected undergraduate colleges, reputed for discharging its core mission of empowering and uplifting the poor and socially disadvantaged through high-quality education.

For the past ten years, this autonomous arts, commerce and science college affiliated with the University of Madras, has consistently been ranked among the Top 10 colleges of India and since 2006, among the country’s top three arts, science and commerce colleges by the Delhi-based weekly India Today. In the latest India Today-Nielsen survey (June 2011), Loyola is ranked second in science and third in the arts and commerce streams.

Currently, this highly reputed college which comprises 23 departments and nine special institutes, offers 18 undergrad and 21 postgrad courses in addition to doctoral programmes. As an autonomous college (since 1978) of Madras University, Loyola designs its own curriculum and conducts its own examinations. It runs two shifts — in the morning for the underprivileged and backward communities which is government aided, and Shift II (started in 1993) in the evenings which offers self-financing courses. From an exclusive men’s college until 1982, Loyola began admitting women students in 1983 for two undergraduate and all postgraduate study programmes.

“The core principle of Jesuit education is to provide holistic learning which develops intellectual rigour and moral rectitude. We stress three aspects — access, equity and quality — and admit a large number of poor students from rural areas. Although Loyola is a Catholic Christian minority college, we admit other students irrespective of caste or creed,” says Rev. Dr. B. Jeyaraj, SJ, principal of the college. An alumnus of Madras University, Dr. Jeyaraj joined the chemistry department of Loyola College in 1988 and served in various capacities until 1994, when he went to the US to complete his Ph D. After obtaining a doctorate he returned to India rejoining Loyola in 2000 and was appointed principal in 2010.

By common academic consensus, the distinguishing characteristic of Loyola College is the foundation courses taught to students in the first four semesters. These include personality development, life skills and coping strategies, Christian doctrine/scriptures, living faiths of the world and social harmony. “We also lay equal stress on making students industry-ready by mandating month-long internships for all final-year students. Other unique features include providing a teacher-mentor to every group of ten students, and a system of students evaluating their teachers at the end of each semester,” says Jeyaraj.

Loyola’s reputation for providing progressive, contemporary education is supported by excellent insti-tutional infrastructure including 12 state-of-the-art laboratories, four computer labs with over 900 computers, 21 smart classrooms, audio-visual preview theatre, editing and production studio, and a central library stocked with over 102,000 book titles, 225 journal subscriptions and electronic resources. The campus is also equipped with several service and recreational centres for differently-abled students.

Sports facilities include a multi-purpose field for football and athletics; a hockey field; two cricket grounds; three tennis courts, three basketball and two badminton courts, and a fully-equipped gym. Hostel accommodation is provided to 1,300 male students in 20 blocks with 262 women accommodated in a separate women’s hostel.

Another outstanding feature of Loyola is its nine full-fledged Institutes of Excellence. Among them: the Entomology Research Institute, Loyola Institute of Frontier Energy, Loyola Institute of Vocational Education,  Loyola Emancipatory Action for Dalit Students, Loyola Institute of People Studies, and Research Academy for Cumulative Excellence.

Loyola’s sustained focus on academic excellence and life skills development has paid off by way of India Inc rolling out the red carpet for its alumni. “In the academic year 2011-2012, 900-1,000 students were campus-recruited by over 25 companies who are regular visitors to our campus. These include Facebook, Google, HCL, Infosys Technologies, Wipro, HSBC Bank, Goldman Sachs and others which offer pay packages ranging from Rs.200,000-500,000 per annum,” says Jeyaraj.

Given its impressive track record in academics, sports, social and cultural activities, it’s unsurprising that Loyola receives 22,000 admission applications every year for the 2,000 seats it offers. The college boasts a stellar list of alumni which includes former president of India R.Venkataraman, Union home minister P. Chidambaram, chess champion Viswanathan Anand, tennis player Vijay Amritraj, N. Ram, editor of The Hindu, and a host of businessmen.

Looking ahead, the college manage-ment has drawn up a progressive Rs.200 crore Master Plan 2025 to enable Loyola to keep pace with global trends by the time it celebrates its centenary in 2025.

“First on our development agenda is a Loyola School of Business Studies to meet the ever increasing demand for commerce and economics courses. Next are specialist schools for physics, maths and social sciences. We also hope to innovatively integrate our arts, science and commerce courses and promote an inter-disciplinary study and research environment. Also on the drawing board are plans to start multimedia education programmes, and introduce a degree course in animation by the next academic year. We will also pursue efforts to become a centrally aided degree awar-ding college in future,” says Dr. Jeyaraj.

Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)