The Padre Faura campus continued to house the professional
schools until 1976. Fr. Francisco Araneta, S.J., was appointed as the Ateneo de
Manila's first Filipino Rector in 1958. In 1959, its centennial year, the
Ateneo became a university.
Late 20th century
Gonzaga Hall
The following decades saw escalating turbulence engulf the
university as an active movement for Filipinization and a growing awareness of
the vast gulf between rich and poor gripped the nation. Throughout the 1960s,
Ateneans pushed for an Ateneo which was more conversant with the Filipino
situation and rooted more deeply in Filipino values. They pushed for the use of
Filipino for instruction, and for the university to implement reforms that addressed
the growing social problems of poverty and injustice. During that time, the
Graduate School split into the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the
Graduate School of Economics and Business Administration, which eventually
became the Graduate School of Business.
In 1965, Fr. Horacio de la Costa became the first Filipino
Provincial Superior of the Philippine Province of the Society of Jesus. On September 25, 1969, Pacifico Ortiz, S.J.,
was installed as the first Filipino President of the Ateneo de Manila.
Ateneans also played a vital role together with student
organizations from other prominent colleges and universities as student
activism rose in academe in the 1970s. Students faced university expulsion and
violent government dispersal as they protested the dismissal of dissenting
faculty and students, oppressive laws and price hikes, human rights violations,
and other injustices. On September 21, 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos declared martial law. The university administration had great difficulty
reconciling the promotion of social justice and keeping the university intact.
They locked down on the more overt expressions of activism—violence and
miltancy—and strove to maintain a semblance of normalcy as they sought to keep
military men from being stationed on campus. In 1973, Jesuit Superior General Fr. Pedro
Arrupe called for Jesuit schools to educate for justice and to form "men
and women for others." The Ateneo college opened its doors to its first
female students in that same year.
Fr. Horacio de la Costa died on March 20, 1977 and was
mourned by not only the Atenean community and the
Jesuits, but by historians and others who have come to appreciate his
writings on Philippine history and culture.
The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences moved to Loyola
Heights in 1976, and the Padre Faura campus finally closed in 1977 as the
Graduate School of Business and the School of Law moved to H.V. de la Costa St.
in Salcedo Village, Makati. That same year, the Ateneo, then the "winningest"
school in men's basketball, left the NCAA, which it co-founded, due to violence
plaguing the league. In 1978 the Ateneo
joined the University Athletic Association of the Philippines. In February
1978, the Ateneo opened the Ateneo-Univac Computer Technology Center, one of
the country’s pioneering computer centers, which later became the Ateneo
Computer Technology Center.
On August 21, 1983, Ateneo alumnus Senator Benigno Aquino,
Jr., was assassinated upon his return from exile in the United States. Ateneans
continued to work with sectors such as the poor, non-government organizations,
and some activist groups in the dying years of the martial law era. On February
11, 1986, alumnus and Antique Governor Evelio Javier was gunned down. Two weeks
later, Ateneans joined thousands of Filipinos from all walks of life in the
peaceful uprising at EDSA which ousted Ferdinand Marcos.
In 1987, nine years after the Ateneo joined the University
Athletic Association of the Philippines (UAAP), the university went on to win
its first crown in UAAP men’s basketball. The Blue Eagles won a second straight
title in 1988.
In 1991, the Ateneo joined in relief operations to help
victims of the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. That same year saw the School of Law
replace its Bachelor of Laws degree with the Juris Doctor degree.
In 1994, the Ateneo was one of the first Philippine schools
on the Internet, and was part of the conference that connected the Philippines
to the World Wide Web. In 1996 the
Ateneo relaunched the Ateneo Computer Technology Center as the Ateneo
Information Technology Institute and established the Ateneo School of
Government. In 1998, the Ateneo’s
Rockwell campus, which currently houses the Ateneo Graduate School of Business,
the Ateneo School of Law, and the Ateneo School of Government, was completed in
Rockwell Center in Bel-Air, Makati. The Science Education Complex was completed
in the Loyola Heights campus.
21st century
In 2000, the School of Arts and Sciences which comprised the
College and the Graduate School restructured into four Loyola Schools: the
School of Humanities, the John Gokongwei School of Management, the School of
Science and Engineering, and the School of Social Sciences. The Moro Lorenzo
Sports Complex was completed in the Loyola Heights campus. Midway through that
year, high school alumnus and Philippine President Joseph Estrada faced grave
corruption charges connected with economic plunder and jueteng, an illegal
numbers game. The University hosted KOMPIL II and other organizations and
movements in its Loyola Heights and Makati campuses. Members of the university
community participated in the Jericho March at the Senate and other mass
actions. On January 20, 2001 Ateneo alumna and former Economics faculty member
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was sworn in as the 14th President of the Philippines,
overthrowing Estrada after top military officers withdrew support from him as
commander in chief.
In April 2002, the office of the University President
established Pathways to Higher Education-Philippines, one of the university's
outreach initiatives, with the help of the Ford and Synergeia Foundations. On
July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius, the University Church of the Gesù was
completed in the Loyola Heights campus and was consecrated by Cardinal Jaime
Sin. The year also saw the Blue Eagles end a 14-year drought in men's
basketball.
In 2003, the Ateneo partnered with Gawad Kalinga in its
first formal, university-wide social action program. Also, in response to the
typhoons and flooding that devastated most of the Philippine Island of Luzon in
November 2004, the Ateneo launched Task Force Noah which has continued to
contribute to disaster relief and rehabilitation efforts in areas that include
Calatagan in Mindoro and Guinsaugon in Southern Leyte. Also in 2004 the Ateneo
earned the highest possible accreditation status, Level IV, from the Federation
of Accrediting Agencies of the Philippines and the Philippine Accrediting
Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU). And the Ateneo celebrated the 145th anniversary
of its founding and of the Jesuits' return to the Philippines, even as plans
began for its sesquicentennial in 2009.
As typhoon relief efforts wound down in January 2005 the
Ateneo, Gawad Kalinga, and other partners launched Kalinga Luzon (KL), a program
dedicated to the long-term rehabilitation of typhoon-stricken communities in
Luzon. In light of the political crisis
sparked by allegations of President Arroyo's cheating in the 2004 presidential
elections, Ateneo de Manila in 2005
established the Social Involvement Workshops and other fora. The Ateneo also
established more tie-ups and foreign linkages, and began preparation for the
Leong Center for Chinese Studies in the university.
In early 2006, members of the Ateneo de Manila University
and affiliated Jesuit institutions were part of movements calling for
discernment, action, and sustainable solutions to the deeply divisive political
issues that continue to rock Filipino society. The Ateneo de Manila University
also intensified its social development efforts, launching Kalinga Leyte, a
program for the long-term rehabilitation of Southern Leyte, with its GK
partners. It expanded the scope of its
involvement with Gawad Kalinga, supporting new initiatives throughout Nueva
Ecija and in other provinces such as Cotobato and Quezon.
Pangilinan
Center for Student Leadership
Midway through 2006, the Manuel V Pangilinan Center for
Student Leadership was completed. The University also had ground-breaking for
several projects: the Ricardo Leong Hall to house several units of the Loyola
Schools' School of Social Sciences, the Confucius Institute for Chinese
Studies, and the Ateneo School of Medicine and Public Health facility in
Ortigas. In December, the Ateneo launched AGAP-Bikol in cooperation with other
Jesuit-affiliated and civil society groups, in response to the devastation
wrought by typhoons in the Bicol area.
In October 2008, 66 faculty members from different
departments, including members of the Theology Department, challenged the
position of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on the
Reproductive Health Bill pending before the Philippine Congress, and declared
that Catholics can support the RH bill in good conscience. The bill would
encourage the use of contraceptives to bring down the large number of abortions
in the country. University President Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J., explained
that their position was not an official position of the university but that
these faculty members had a right to express their views as individual
Catholics and that there should be continuing efforts on the critical study and
discussion of the bill among Church groups, at the university and in civil
society. In November 2008, the university began work on building a new Rizal
Library facility. In December, a new set of university dormitories was
inaugurated. The Ateneo High School was granted Level III accreditation by the
PAASCU, the highest level in the country.
In September and October 2009, students from the university
organised Task Force Ondoy in response to Typhoon Ketsana. The task force
conducted relief operations in various areas struck hard by the typhoon,
particularly in Marikina City.
In May 2011, the university was granted Level IV
Re-Accredited Status and Institutional Accreditation by the Commission on
Higher Education (CHED) through the Federation of Accrediting Agencies of the
Philippines (FAAP) and the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools,
Colleges and Universities (PAASCU), the first time that both citations were
awarded to a university simultaneously. In 2011 Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, S.J.,
retired from the presidency of Ateneo and was succeeded by Fr. Jose Ramon T.
Villarin, S.J. On November 25, 2011 the
Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities
(PAASCU) awarded the Ateneo de Manila Loyola Schools Level IV Re-accreditation
for 21 academic programmemes as well as Institutional Accreditation.
PHILIPPINE JESUITS AND POPE FRANCIS
When Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis on March 13,
2013, he became the first Jesuit to head the Catholic Church. So for Filipino Jesuits awaiting his visit to
the Philippines, the event was extra special.
In the words of Jesuits in the country, his coming is a form of a
renewal and his papacy so far an embodiment of what it means to be a Jesuit.
During the visit, the Pope announced that Brother Richie
Fernando, the 26-year-old Filipino Jesuit who died saving his Cambodian
students in 1996, is on the road to sainthood.
