Top 10 Colleges
"We lay a lot of stress on the importance of freedom. Students cannot be bound by just an academic approach. To help them the impossible, we have to let them fly.” – Fr. A. Albert Muthumalai, S.J., Principal
Loyola College has continued to remain for the past 8 years, in the list of Top 10 Colleges in India ranked by India Today.
India Today Ranking (2002 to 2009) Loyola College position
2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | |
Arts | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 7 |
Science | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 1 |
Commerce | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 8 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
Arts
As he walks out of the principal's office, C. Rajashekaran is all smiles. A Sri Lankan refugee, he handed in Chennai three months ago with no papers or wealth and is among the many aspirants who have obtained admission to enter the hallowed portals of Loyola College , Chennai this year. The 100-acre campus with tree-lined avenues housing the 85- year-old institution belies its status in the world of education with its austere and serene look. For Loyola takes its achievements in its stride. Topping the INDIA TODAY-NIELSEN best colleges survey in the arts stream for the third consecutive year, it continues to rule the roost not just at the local but national level as well, often serving as inspiration for policy decisions in the world of education.
For topper Loyola, it is an interdisciplinary approach to the humanities that continues to mark the curriculum. “We lay a lot of stress on the importance of freedom. Students cannot be bound by just an academic approach. To help them achieve the impossible, we have to let them fly.” says the principal of Loyola College , Rev. Dr. A. Albert Muthumalai. He estimates that a third of the students who complete their studies in arts and humanities at Loyola turn entrepreneurs, while a third pursue higher studies and research and the rest find gainful employment. Always a leader, Loyola has in the last decade changed its approach to education. Once considered an elitist college, Loyola today takes great pride in focusing on the poor and the needy. Besides accommodating refugees from Sri Lanka and Tibet , the college also makes an attempt to bring first generation learners into the mainstream. “We have some of the best faculty members and we use them to ensure that the first year in college is used to bridge the gap between students in terms of their past education and achievements,” says Muthumalai.
The key to success lies in continuously reinventing itself. “We are now in the third phase of restructuring both our curriculum as well as governing policies,” says Muthumalai. Thanks to this restructuring, the choice based credit system introduced by Loyola has been adopted and implemented by the Government of Tamil Nadu across institutions. The other is the shift system. “My college timings are from 8.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. This gives me enough time to do anything I want,” says a student who works part-time to finance his studies. “Our placement cell is very active to the needs to these students; the shift system ensures that they have enough time for research as well as for the extracurricular activities,” adds the principal. The beginning of the academic year will see the inter-departmental college festival, aimed at building camaraderie among students. Some of the biggest names in Tamil cinema, including Suriya and Vijay, are also proud Loyola alumni. One of the biggest achievements of Loyola in recent times has been a project based on inter-departmental research. The creation of a bridge on the Pulicat fishing Lake Project had the faculty and students of the history, economics, sociology and zoology departments working together. The project is funded by a Netherlands agency, Cordaid.
The course content for arts stream includes human resource management, medical and psychiatric social work and human rights and other subjects. The outreach programme of the college is mandatory for all its students and teaching children in the nearby slums is considered as important as conducting seminars on the growth of Indian writing in English at the college. Grants from the UGC and other funding bodies enable students in the arts stream (often ignored by research bodies) to engage as actively in research as their counterparts from the science stream.
Commerce
Loyola College, Chennai, the unique international programme on the national entrepreneurial network as ensured that the commerce students of the college have a distinct advantage. Academic exchange programme with world-class institutes like the Singapore Management Development Institute and the London Metropolitan University have also held it in good stead. With alumni like chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, little needs to be said about the wholesome education that commerce students at the college are imparted. At Loyola, academics is just one of the many moves that helps its products stay ahead in the game.
Science
The serpentine queues outside the principal's office grow by the day as students and their parents await admission interviews for science courses at Loyola College , Chennai. That, now, is nothing unusual as Loyola is the star in the science stream yet again.
Back at Loyola, it is clear that the stream goes beyond the classroom. Not too many colleges can boast of being agents of change in the city they live in. But right from the 1950s. Loyola has been involved with the Madras City Corporation in research-based operations to help in city's planning. The last few years have seen the faculty and students of the college being involved in a project that has been financed by the Government of India (Information Technology) to restructure the storm water drains in Chennai, the primary cause of waterlogging and spread of water-borne diseases in the city. Thanks to the effort, there is a considerable change today. ”Our students don't just conduct research, they also get to see the projects implemented,” says Dr S. Vincent, professor at the department of advanced zoology and bio-technology, who led the project. Similarly, global warming is not just a subject of symposiums at Loyola. Students are actually asked to put into practice what they learn. The vermin compost pit for waste management on the campus is one such initiative. The faculty at the college has college has also embarked on an ambitious programme to generate 50 per cent of its power requirement through solar panels. Their constant endeavour to innovate gives Loyola an added edge.
While Vincent engages in ventures like drainage maintenance, Project Elephant and a project for the Tamil Nadu Council for Scientific Technology, others like Dr. S. Ignacimuthu are on the verge of creating a vaccine for Tuberculosis. He says: ”We have already worked in the lab by injecting a microbial antigen into plants that produces antibodies to bed used as vaccines against TB.” Grants from the UGC and other funding bodies ensure that projects are never short of funds. “The funding bodies expect transparency and good results and that is something we are always confident about,” says Vincent.
Loyola received grants amounting to Rs 1 crore for research-related projects in the last academic year. Eight MOUs have been signed with foreign universities, taking the total number with universities and corporate bodies to 45. While the placement cell ensures that 40 per cent of the students land plum jobs, nearly 50 per cent passing out opt for research projects, most of them within the institution itself. It is also not uncommon to find Ph.D. students and scholars staying back late after hours in the laboratories or the 24/7 library. The gamut of courses in the science stream includes a B.Sc in visual communication, plant biology, bio-technology, and food science and food processing. Raising the bar every year by reinventing its teaching programme, Loyola is already looking at the future. “We hope to have smart classrooms as well as e-learning in the years to come. Our infrastructure needs to be revisited too,” says Rev. Dr. A. Albert Muthumalai, principal of Loyola who insists that “science can achieve its true potential only when it is used to serve society”.
Source: “Top Ten Colleges of India” – India Today (June 22, 2009)
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