The longest-serving Ateneo president has stepped down.
After 18 years of service, Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ, has turned over the post of university president to Fr. Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ. Villarin assumes office this April.
Nebres’ term saw a lot of changes to the Ateneo de Manila University. The former School of Arts and Sciences was restructured into the four Loyola Schools, a process that spanned six years, from 1994 to 2000. During this time, several changes to the curriculum were also made.
Nebres says his goals as university president were to “lead Ateneo de Manila to engage the greatest challenges of our time.” He identified two challenges: closing the competitive gap between Ateneo and its Asian neighbors, and closing the poverty gap between the rich and poor in the Philippines.
To address the competitiven gap, innovative facilities such as the new Rizal Library were built. Outside the Loyola Schools, the Ateneo Professional Schools were also established to cater to graduate students. The Ateneo Law School, the Graduate School of Business, the School of Government and the School of Medicine and Public Health served to form graduates further in their chosen fields.
“From 2000 on, we have seen how the new Loyola Schools have moved with great dynamism into the new century and new millennium,” Nebres said.
Beyond the infrastructure, Nebres also noted that the school’s graduates have gone beyond being “men and women for others” to being “professionals for others.”
“All students or alumni…have shown that it is indeed possible to be excellent professionals and also use our professional expertise to make a difference for the poor,” Nebres said, citing programs for education, social entrepreneurship, building communities and providing public health for the poor. Nebres has been heavily involved in Ateneo Center for Educational Development (ACED), Pathways to Higher Education, and Gawad Kalinga.
At the close of his 18 years in office, Nebres noted that the challenges must continuously be met. “Both the challenge of competitiveness and making a difference on poverty are moving targets,” he said. “When we benchmark with our neighbors, we know we have to continue to work harder on excellence. When we look at the growing number of poor in our country, we know that we also have to work harder to overcome poverty.”
With reports from Katrina B. Gadong
