XAVIER UNIVERSITY ATENEO DE CAGAYAN

The beginning Ateneo de Cagayan opened in 1933 with just 17 pupils enrolled in first year high school. It was founded by Fr. James T.G. Hayes S.J. who later became the first archbishop of the Cagayan de Oro Archdiocese, the first archdiocese in Mindanao.  Its humble school building was a two-storey wooden affair, formerly the St. Augustine Parochial School established in 1928, on Burgos Street. Cagayan, then with a population of around 50,000, had the finest port in Mindanao and was a fast-growing town.  Gradually, the school grew with the community and opened college courses in June 1938, and Grades five to seven in June 1940 to accommodate requests from parents all over Mindanao and Visayas. World War II Having transferred to its present campus along Corrales Street in 1935, Ateneo de Cagayan was offering courses in Liberal Arts, Education and Commerce aside from the primary and secondary levels when it was forced to close on December 9, 1941.  War had broken out and students were sent home.  The chemistry laboratory of the college was at first used to extract quinine for the government forces.  However, the campus was used as the Northern Mindanao headquarters of the Japanese troops after they entered Cagayan de Misamis on May 2, 1942. The school was reduced to rubble when on September 9, 1944, American planes began bombing Cagayan.  “Those liberators wrecked the town of Cagayan and its wharves.  When they day was over the old transit showed our college in ruins, the century-old cathedral gone, and the lovely house of the Bishop a heap of concrete,” wrote Fr. Edward J. Haggerty, S.J. then the School Rector of Ateneo de Cagayan.  “One group of seven Liberators in fifteen minutes destroyed our material labor of fifteen years,” he continued. Fr. Haggerty was awarded the US Bronze Star medal on February 21, 1947 for his services as a volunteer chaplain of the Visayan-Mindanao Force during the war years.  He also became adviser to Ferttig’s Guerrilla Government.  Fr. Haggerty and his successor, Fr. Andrew F. Cervini, S.J., worked to reconstruct the school, and in 1946 regular classes recommenced.  This was only interrupted again after the eruption of Mt. Hibok-hibok on August 30, 1947 when the campus housed refugees from Camiguing, and even sponsored a boxing bout in its gym to raise funds for the victims. Xavier University In a seemingly difficult bid for university status, Fr. Francisco Araneta promised St. Francis Xavier that should Ateneo de Cagayan be conferred university status before the Commencement Exercises on March 22, 1958, the school will be renamed in honor of the saint. And indeed, like an unfolding drama, just an hour before the Commencement Exercises began, a telegram from then Secretary of Education, Manuel Lim, was received, announcing that the Ateneo de Cagayan had been granted the status of a University. On August 27, 1958, Ateneo de Cagayan was inaugurated as a university and had officially become Xavier University.  It became the first university in Mindanao, and the first Jesuit institution, among those existing in the Philippines, to be given university status.  After the inauguration, a banquet was held in honor of then Philippine President, Carlos P. Garcia, who was conferred, the very same day, the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, the first honorary degree given by the university. Pacing with change Continuing to be of and in the society the university is progressing with, it has established institutions that not only provide additional exposure to its students and staff but also extend assistance to sectors and communities in need. In 1957, the Research Institute for Mindanao Culture (RIMCU) was established to study Mindanao, its culture, issues and concerns. The Southeast Asia Rural Social Leadership Institute (SEARSOLIN), formed in 1963, trains leaders from various countries in agricultural work grounded on present developments.  Proud of its heritage, Xavier University has its own museum, Museo de Oro¸ which was started in 1968.  Reminding the present generation of the humble beginnings of the university and its bigger community, it is home to an exhibit of previous and prevailing folk beliefs in Mindanao, artifacts found at Huluga Cave which date back to 377 A.D., and three of the remaining copies of the menu of the 1898 presidential banquet of Emilio Aguinaldo in Malolos Bulacan. Presently, the university is composed of four campuses – the Manresa Complex, which is the main training grounds of the College of Agriculture and which also houses the SEARSOLIN, the Sustaining Agriculture Center, Appropriate Technology Center, and the Food Technology Center; the High School and Grade School annex in Pueblo de Oro; the Grade School campus in Macasandig; and the College campus along Corrales Street. But more than its physical expansion, the key to its success as an academic institution throughout the years had always been its thrust to instill in its students and staff its commitment to be of the people, for the people and with the people.  And its biggest accomplishment, beyond all academic achievements, is still its continuing tradition of producing men and women for others.