The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in Asia Pacific (AJCU-AP) has met for their annual meeting at Sanata Dharma University, Jogjakarta, Indonesia last August 11-12, 2016. The annual meeting was preceded by the Jesuit Conference in Asia Pacific (JCAP) Conference on the Sustainability of Life on August 8-10, 2016 at the same university.
The annual meeting of the AJCU-AP was attended by the chief executive officers of AJCU-AP’s charter and regular members from Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, and Thailand. The St. Aloysius Gonzaga Institute of Higher Studies of Myanmar, Myanmar Leadership Institute, and the Instituto Sao Joao de Brito of East Timor, were also inducted as new members into the Jesuit body.
Fr. Mark Raper, President of JCAP, delivered the annual meeting’s keynote speech which focused on the call for greater collaboration among Jesuit schools in the Asia Pacific.
In the meeting, the Board of Directors of the AJCU-AP has resolved that the body will be the institutional home of the Sustainability Movement headed by the JCAP in order for the body to provide institutional guidance to JCAP’s apostolic clusters in terms of collaboration.
The Board of Directors has also designated Ateneo de Manila University as the host of the 2017 Service Learning Program (SLP). The SLP, an AJCU-AP project, aims to promote a Jesuit brand of participative learning paradigm that propagates the service of the faith and the promotion of justice, appreciation of culture, and inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue. For its ninth iteration, it was resolved that the program will be working closely with the JCAP Sustainability Movement.
By the end of the meeting, Prof. Eka Priyatma of the Sanata Dharma University was elected as the new chairperson of the AJCU-AP. Prof. Priyatma replaces Fr. Joel Tabora of Ateneo de Davao University, who has served as the chair of the AJCU-AP for thirteen years.
The next CEO meeting of the AJCU-AP will be on August 18-20, 2017 in Thailand. Further details about the meeting will be announced at a later date by the AJCU-AP Secretariat.
