St Joseph's College Irinjalakuda

True education is an ornament in times of prosperity and a refuge in times of adversity. This institution seeks to graduate women as skilled, refined, innovative, service-oriented professional promoters of inter-cultural understanding and sustainable economic development. Located on the outskirts of Thrissur district, it has remained for the last four and forty years a centre for hundreds of women to stay and study rewardingly. In a vibrant and dynamic environment, we have been able to cater for the academic growth of a large number of heterogeneous women, many of whom did not have previous opportunities to develop their potential as much as they wished. Thus spoke the Principal on the faculty behind the change: "At the heart of this institution our faculty believes that every student is to be known, loved, respected, and challenged, and that they serve as role models to them. They ever try to hold themselves to high standards as role models because they know, students "learn them" more than they learn subject matter. This provides us with a unique opportunity to model ourselves to our students in scholastic and moral disciplines that can last a life time. As the Principal I am the lead teacher, not the administrator alone, and my role, I fully realize, is to raise my institution during my tenure to the highest standards of virtue, integrity, and scholarship." Women’s colleges are still thought of as academic convents. Alumnae, however, testify that their experiences gave them the singular benefit of learning and living among a select group of intelligent, ambitious women, all the opportunities such a campus offers wholly left to them to make use of. In several key areas, St. Joseph’s has performed higher including in the proportion of entrepreneurs produced and leadership training received. Additionally, the alumnae testify, the reputation of their alma mater played a major role in getting into greater institutions or obtaining their first job. The potential benefits of a college that focuses exclusively on fostering the hopes and desires of young women are undeniably numerous. On a co-ed campus there may be pressure to impress guys instead of concentrating on a career or discovered talents that she was completely unaware of in high school. "I chaired the college functions,” says Dr. Geetha Mary Thomas, now the Asst. VP (Resource Management), California State University, Northridge, CA 91330-8275, noting she would have had to compete with men for an edge, had she been in a co-ed setting." Popularity at a women's college, as is generally believed, isn’t about clothing, hairstyles or physical charm,” she adds, “but about your convictions, your passion and your actions." St. Joseph’s is, however, more than a college. Ever since it was founded in 1964 it has been constantly evolving to respond to the educational needs of thousands of suburban women of mediocre means. By continually building on its long history of expertise in women’s education, the college has been functioning also as a platform for robust productive debate on issues relevant to our changing society and this has groomed its products into agents of change distinguished by their intellect, integrity, service motivation and moral vision.