Establishment of The Department of Psychology in Odisha

Following his return from London in 1949, he dreamt of starting a separate Psychology department much to the objections of several Heads of Humanities Division. A distinguished academic and institution builder, he is hailed as the founder of the first Department of Psychology both at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels in Odisha [1]. It was a historic move when he established the Department of Psychology as an independent department in 1953, literally separating himself and the new discipline from the mother Department of Philosophy at Ravenshaw College. Again, the Post-Graduate Department was established by him in 1958 in the Ravenshaw College, which was later moved to Utkal University campus, at Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar.

     

The opposition from and jealousy of many of his contemporaries did not deter him, and he relentlessly pursued his vision with a very basic conviction that ‘People are jealous of kings, not of beggars.' He became the first Professor of Psychology in Odisha in 1960. He continued to head the Post Graduate Department of Psychology at Utkal University from its inception until he retired from his formal job in 1981. Thereafter, he was honored by the Indian Council of Social Sciences Research (ICSSR) as a National Fellow [1].

   

Prof. Rath did not look back and continued to strengthen and reinforce the discipline harnessing much-needed resources from the national bodies such as UGC, NCERT and ICSSR so much so that by the time he retired in 1981, the Department of Psychology at Utkal University held the status of the UGC’s first Center of Advanced Study in Psychology in India and first such center in Odisha. His trend-setting effort in founding a separate Department of Psychology created a new and distinct identity for the subject, which was earlier part and parcel of the discipline of philosophy. His academic and organizational leadership earned him country-wide respect and admiration.

     

His relentless pursuit for creating a space for his newly founded department of Psychology in national and international horizons yielded highly-acclaimed positive results. The recognition of the Department of Psychology at Utkal by the UGC as the Center of Advanced Study in Psychology in 1980 constituted his crowning achievement, which attracted academics and professors of Psychology from across the world, who regarded the center as a nucleus of research and study on Psychology in India. Professors from UK, USA, USSR, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and other countries believed that the discipline of Psychology as pursued at Utkal represented Indian ethos and thoughts on Psychology with the regional-knowledge bases serving to strengthen the Indian Psychology represented at the center in Utkal. Such was the tone and tenure of the center at Utkal that students from the northern and the southern parts of the country rushed to Utkal in the '80s and '90s to complete their doctoral and post-doctoral research under the supervision of the faculty members who grew to positions of eminence under the nurturance and leadership of Prof. Rath.

 

When he retired from his professional job in 1981 and left Utkal University, the Department of Psychology had 19 teaching staff including three Professors, 44 senior scholars from different Indian Universities for Ph. D and D. Litt degrees, three visiting professors and about 40 non-teaching staff. The special status of Psychology Department as a Center of Advanced Study (CAS), not only made Psychology quite popular in this part of the country, leading to the opening of the subject of Psychology in a number of colleges in Odisha, with a large student population, but also prompted a climate of advanced and trend-setting psychological research in diverse fields originating from the center in Utkal University.