Casimir Raj

Fr. Casimir Raj has been associated with education and teaching marketing for the past three decades in various institutions including XLRI Jamshedpur; St. Louis University, Missouri; Wheeling Jesuit College, Wheeling and XIM Bhubaneshwar. He was the founder Director of LIBA and Principal of Loyola College, Chennai. He was also Director, XIM Bhubaneshwar., Goa Institute of Management. A member of the American Marketing Association and a PhD from St. Louis University, (in Missouri, USA), Fr. Casimir is widely regarded to be authority in marketing with numerous publications to his credit.

a) Loyola College

He was the Asst. director cum warden from 1977 – 1980, rector from 1980 – 1983, and the principal from 1983 – 1986.

During this period, new post-graduate courses in journalism, Tourism, Communication, Art Appreciation, Photography, Soil Zoology and Computer Science were started as additional or optional disciplines two important events may be recorded: the visit to the college of the Prime Minister of Zambia, Daniel Lesulo, an Old Boy, in 1979 and of Rev. Fr. Arrupe, S.J., Superior General of the Society of Jesus, in 1980. An important event to be mentioned was the opening of the Entomology Research Institute (ERI) under the auspices of the Central Government.

Rev. Fr. Casimir Raj, S.J., as Principal, made the almost impossible as possible. Co-education was introduced only in his period. He has left his mark on the college particularly by starting LIBA (Loyola Institute for business Administration). It was declared, by a Central Government Commission, the best of its kind in Tamil Nadu.

b) Director, Dean for XLRI Jamshedpur

In 2004-05, Casimir Raj took charge as XLRI’s Director after Fr. P. D. Thomas. He was also the Vice Chairman of the Board of Governors of XLRI Jamshedpur. He vowed to make XLRI stand out from the rest of the B-Schools and to build up the family-like atmosphere of togetherness and camaraderie, in addition to the number of new academic, Research and Exchange programme initiatives.

In an exclusive interview to MBAUniverse.com, director of XLRI Jamshedpur Fr N Casimir Raj, shared the past, present and future of XLRI’s pursuit of value based management education..

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: How do you see this long journey of XLRI Jamshedpur since 1949? What are the major milestones?

A: In this long journey XLRI has served by providing quality management education to its students. We came into existence soon after independence in 1949. I personally feel that we won our independence not through violence or war but by mobilizing the people – and they are our biggest strength. But this unity at the grassroots level also had a hidden danger. If workers come together mindlessly they can paralyze the economy and industry. Our workers weren’t educated. So we thought we should educate the labor. XLRI started as a labor relations institute. Over the years, we have done a good job at training and educating human resources.

Excellence and integrity is our motto, which is derived from the word ‘Magic’ – that means to improve and to excel.

Our main thrust is to serve the students and society. We have taken many steps in the last decade to meet our vision. We started satellite-based programs in 2000. We also conduct our XAT exam in 84 centers while CAT is conducted at fewer centers. We want students to not undertake extra travel for talking our exams. XLRI has also expanded overseas in Dubai and Singapore.

Teaching Experience: