Research, on the one hand, is confirmation of our vocation to march with the marginalized;
and on the other hand it is conforming to the needs of the people at the bottom of the social
pyramid. We try to achieve this through our educational institutions. Our education is need-
based. At the same time the University not only promotes research but interdisciplinary
research: “Jesuit universities will promote interdisciplinary work; this implies a spirit of
cooperation and dialogue among specialists within the university itself and with those of
other universities” (GC 34, 413). The Ignatian Two Standards, in the realm of education, are
the choice between the world of the dominant and affluent with Property – Position – Power;
and the world of the suppressed Have-Nots, who are in need of Education – Enlightenment –
Empowerment. We choose the latter world of the oppressed and the needy.
In general, this action is preceded with research. Fr Kolvenbach, in one of his addresses to the
Congregation of Provincials, said, “an institution of higher learning and of research can
become an instrument of justice in the name of the Gospel”. Research becomes the
connecting link between a theoretical frame work for the future and the reality of need.
Hence, one needs clarity and purpose when s/he launches upon research. Jesuit education is
walking the talk with regard to the hard reality of the poor, the unserved, and the under-
served – It is marching with the marginalized. Our walking with the poor to enrich as well as
to empower them needs creative and collaborative research through studying the global
issues; sharing research tools and resources; and disseminating research findings broadly in
multiple milieus and languages.
In his talk to the International Federation of Catholic Universities (04 Nov 2017), Pope
Francis underlined the responsibilities of Catholic Universities towards the refugees and the
migrants in a globalized world. He indicated three areas of focus, namely “research, teaching,
and social promotion in order to bring about the construction of a more just and humane
world”. We need, he added, “to do further studies into the root causes of forced migration
with the aim of identifying viable solutions”. He recommends distance education for those
who live in refugee camps and scholarships for those who get resettled. The outcome of such
education should be “political leaders of the future, entrepreneurs, and artists of culture”.
The call of GC 32 for “faith that does justice” has evolved as “faith and reconciliation” in GC
36: “Our educational apostolates at all levels, and our centers for communication and social
research, should help form men and women committed to reconciliation and able to confront
obstacles to reconciliation and propose solutions. The intellectual apostolate should be
strengthened to help in the transformation of our cultures and societies” (GC 36 D1/34).
Jesuit education is individual holistic formation of leaders for social transformation. And this
transformation should permeate from the bottom of the social pyramid: Empowering those at
the margins is transforming the society. The effective instrument is teaching and research.
Research brings in insight into reality and change in our understanding leading to a paradigm
shift. As Jesuits we follow the Ignatian/Integral Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP): In a given
context, encashing our past cumulative or experiential experience, we reflect on the needs of
the people we serve using the tools of scientific research. The outcome is action-plan for
experimentation as well as implementation. This process is punctuated by periodic evaluation,
which brings about an enrichment of experience. And the cyclic process goes on with
enhanced action plan followed by evaluation etc. Thus the IPP of Context Experience
Reflection Action Evaluation (enhanced/enriched) Experience…. is an ongoing
process.
The Ignatian model of education as well research is four-fold, namely, intuition, inspiration,
conformation, and integration. The basic assumption is that the education we impart to our
students is not the private property of the individuals but the societal heritage of the people
they come from. Now, how do we realize this in practice?:
- Ongoing and live-trend within ourselves to be sensitive to the needs and expectations of the others we serve is the intuition;
- Channelizing our critical and innovative thinking to come up with effective teaching methodology is inspiration;
- Our feeling for the other and our understanding for the needy meeting in our critical thinking and evolving
commitment to uplift the option people is conformation of the need and our resources; and Harnessing our resources and networking with others in developing education as holistic - formation leading to social transformation is integration.
- In today’s world people search for meaning in their lives and we complement them through
- our research. Research is simple – It is not a Himalayan mystery. Once Einstein was playing
- violin on the bank of a river. The water was flowing in the river in one direction and there was
- a boat that was moving in the opposite direction – He asked the simple question: What is the
- speed of the boat? The speed of the boat has to be relative – relative to Einstein who was
- static on the ground and relative to the river that was in motion in the opposite direction. This
- is the origin of Theory of Relativity. In 1905, in six months (March to August) he wrote five
- papers, such as E = mc 2 , Photo-Electric Effect, Relativity, Brownian Motion etc and all of
- them changed the face of science and understanding of the world. He was, then, just 26 years
- of age – And he was working as a clerk in a patent office.
- Research should be natural to a Jesuit. All we need to do are the following:
- Observe reality objectively. Remember the reality is a spectrum of probabilities.
- Think critically: Ask ‘why?’ as well as ‘why not?’ Newton, when he was sitting in his
- apple orchard and when an apple fell from the tree, not on his head as believed, he asked
- why it should fall down and why not going up? The result is: Newtons laws of motion.
- C.V. Raman asked the simple question: Why does the sea look blue? The end effect is
- ‘Raman Effect’ (He spent about Rs 87 to construct the gadget for his experiment, which is
- still lying down in the Presidency College, Chennai, in a corner but he got the Nobel
- Prize). Doppler just observed why when a train is pulling into the station, its whistle
- intensity increases and it decreases when it leaves the station. The outcome is Doppler
- effect which plays a major role in medical world – I am sure, many of us would have taken
- Doppler test when we did ultrasonic check-up.
- Develop teaching pedagogy. Paolo Freire echoing Plato (in The Republic) decries that our
- teaching model is a ‘banking model’. You store information into the heads of students all
- through the semester or year; and you draw/test his/her knowledge via semester exams.
- Instead, could we think of a pedagogy where the students could learn by doing; where a
- student could develop his/her analytical mind through mini-projects?
- For this, we need to constantly update our knowledge. Could we read at least one book a
- semester to enhance our expert knowledge in our teaching/administrative/research area and
- could we publish at least one research paper a year? Remember we are demanding
- annually at least two research papers with impact parameters from our faculty members.
And finally, research in education is an ocean. Some delve deep and discover pearls from the
depth of knowledge to enrich the world of science and technology; some just get satisfied
with a couple of sea-shells as souvenirs; some just get their feet wet by getting PhD as a
decorative piece after their names; and many just stand on the shore looking at the surf on the
ocean, never venturing into the vast ocean of opportunity. In the pandemic situation, we could
do research on virology, sanitizer, social impact, mass education on SOP etc. A couple of
days ago I attended a doctoral viva, in Loyola (Chennai) on: how Rudraksha (fruit) is anti-
cancerous. Investigative writing is another area where all of us could engage in.
As Jesuits, we are grateful to the Mother Society, for we have received so much. But our
output, by way of teaching and research, should be more than the input we have imbibed. And
this output should be 30, 60, 80, even 100 fold. Let us have the courage and confidence, as
GC 36 would put it, to row into the deep. Let us throw the net of research onto the sea of
knowledge – Let us gather the fish of usefulness for the society and discard the garbage of
time-wasters.
Let me conclude with the words of Fr Kolvenbach in his address to the Jesuits in the USA on
07 Jan 1989: We need “to reevaluate our colleges and universities, our teaching priorities, our
programs, our research efforts to make them even more effective… Teaching and research and all
that goes into the educational process are of the highest importance in our institutions because
they reject and refute any partial or deformed vision of the human person.”
Today, as Jesuits in university colleges, we need to concentrate on three areas:
- Advocacy: We need to build awareness of injustice and promote social change based on
ground-reality research and experience; - Research: We have the duty to identify areas of unmet needs, conduct research and publish
the results to advocate for change in keeping with our vision of ‘building a just society’;
and - Policy: We need to regularly respond to social justice issues and produce a number of
policy submissions and papers every now and then (Cf. https://jss.org.au/research-and-
advocacy/).
Our research should be based on the confirmation of our option and vision and it should
evolve into conformation of the people as bottom-up efforts in the social pyramid. This invites
collaboration and networking at intra-, inter-, and trans-levels, that is, within our campuses,
on a national and global levels. Let us do it – We can do it and we should do it. Let us begin
today.