Loyola ICAM College of Engineering and Technology

Loyola College and ICAM, both guided by the Jesuit methodology of education, have inked a joint venture of founding an engineering college which would be a unique model not only in forming engineers with social responsibility but also serving as a melting pot of Indian and French cultures preparing Indian students to serve in European industries and European students to work in Indian industries. The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Loyola College Society (LCS) and the ICAM-Group in Lille, France in April 2009.When education was only for the elite and the rich, St Ignatius of Loyola (Founder of the Jesuit Order) founded the Roman College and announced free education.From that time the Jesuits have effectively used education as the key to empowerment of the marginalized and they applied education as the mantra to make the neglected gain leadership in the society. During the colonization of South America, the Jesuits founded the so called Jesuit Republics and they set not only the slaves free but educated and trained them in music and fine-arts on par with the Europeans. And in the 1960s, especially after the General Congregation 32 (the highest policy making body of the Jesuit Order), the Jesuits all over the globe took the preferential option for the poor and the marginalized. And it was concretised in South India, especially in Tamilnadu, as preferential option for the rural poor and the Dalits who are socially marginalized, economically impoverished, religiously ignored and politically neglected. The first university college in India was founded by the Jesuits as St Josephs College (Trichy in 1844). And today the well-known other Jesuit institutions of Jesuit higher education in Tamilnadu are Loyola College, Loyola College of Education, Loyola Institute of Business Administration (Chennai), St Xaviers College and St Xaviers College of Education (Palayamkottai), Arul Anandar College (Karumathur) and Loyola College (Vettavalam). Loyola College (Chennai) has been, over a decade, ranked as one of the top ten excellent institutions in India. Now the Jesuits have come forward to found a professional institution to train the youth in skill-based capacity building in order to meet the needs and challenges of the ever evolving world of science and technology. It is in this context that Loyola-ICAM College of Engineering and Technology (LICET) has taken shape in Loyola College Campus (Chennai) which is located in the heart of Chennai cosmopolitan city in South India.