Fr Michael Garanzini SJ, Secretary for Higher Education of the Society of Jesus, was recently in Manila as the post-conference keynote speaker for the International Conference on Education Frontiers, organized by the Asia-Pacific Interactive Jesuit Education Consortium (API-JEC) and the Ateneo de Manila Institute of the Science and Art of Learning and Teaching (Ateneo SALT).
He is also the chairman of the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU), founded just last July. “We’ve had schools all over the world, and Father General has assistants to help him understand education, but we’ve never had a formal association,” he shared.
“Two things I think have really changed to make this formal association really the right thing to do at this time. Number one, communication means we can be in touch… Number two, universities all over the world have recognized in the last decade that to be a university means you can’t be interested in only local study, local issues. Being a university means being global–in the sense that you have connections.”
The Deusto Assembly in Bilbao last June was a testament to the Society’s vision for higher education. “What’s emerged among the Jesuits is the question why aren’t we more formally connected since we all share this common character? The past Father Generals have all thought of our universities as a global system that we ought to be utilizing, so they have pushed that we need to be more connected formally. So we finally listened. This is also an indication of how long it takes Jesuits to listen. In 2010, Fr Nicolas said: ‘We need to be a globally connected system.’ It’s 2018! We finally got to sign the charter.”
With insight and wisdom from many years of working in higher education, Fr Garanzini talked about how young people today are growing up, surrounded by the pressures of a highly technological and rapidly changing world–and how the Jesuit education can shape them into global leaders.