Eduardo Frey, president of Chile, and Fr. Juan Díaz, SJ, provincial of the Chilean Province, accept the congratulations of many at the inaugural ceremony in Santiago for the Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado, the newest Jesuit institution of higher education in the world.

by Fr John Swope, SJ

n Santiago, Chile, on a beautiful evening last October, the charter of a new Jesuit university, Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado, was signed during a ceremony attended by representatives of more than 60 Jesuit universities and scores of Chilean civic and church officials and friends of the Society of Jesus. The university's namesake was a Chilean Jesuit whose activity in the sphere of social justice is a legendary part of Chilean culture (see box story below).

The ceremony's keynote speaker, Soledad Alvear, Chilean minister of justice and a 1974 graduate (MA in social science) of the Jesuits' Instituto Latinoamericano de Doctrina y Estudios Sociales (ILADES) in Santiago, underscored the Society's important contribution to the social policy debate in Chile by quoting a comment Alberto Hurtado made a half-century ago:

"We should point out the need for seminars of social studies in which the national realities of Latin American countries are thoroughly studied, in which social reform plans are critically discussed, and in which social projects are designed; once matured, these plans should be placed in the hands of legislators. These and other works are beckoning Catholics to come forward and give living testimony of the Christian spirit of justice."

The founding of this newest Jesuit university is a definite return to the Society's roots in Chile, a continuance of the educational role Jesuits have played in Chile since they founded the Colegio Máximo de San Miguel in 1594, a year after they first arrived.

But there are major differences between the two foundings. Today, Jesuits have returned to higher education in Chile not in search of the nostalgia associated with the Colegio Máximo but because the spirit of the Society has compelled the Chilean Province to respond to the challenges currently facing the Chilean Church and nation. Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado is a mission "reborn," because even after so many years, crucial tasks remain in Chile.

Evolution

While the early evolution of the sixteenth-century Colegio Máximo followed a pattern typical of most Jesuit universities, the recent development of the Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado makes a decided break with tradition. While most universities create graduate programs on a foundation of undergraduate programs, this new Chilean university has done exactly the opposite: it has developed undergraduate programs from two Jesuit graduate schools, ILADES and the Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Educación (CIDE), based in Santiago as is ILADES.

"You can't imagine the challenges that the founding of the university is creating for us," comments Fr. Gonzalo Arroyo, SJ, the new academic vice president of the university. "We developed undergraduate programs from highly successful graduate programs. It's like adding a first floor under the second floor. It is certainly a strange architectural experiment."

Fr. Fernando Montes, SJ, university rector, adds his perspective. "We are not beginning at square one. After more than 30 years of research and teaching at ILADES and CIDE, we want to take that rich experience and place it at the service of Chile and Latin America." These two independent graduate academic centers, together with the Jesuits' Centro de Investigación Sociocultural and the Chilean Province of the Society of Jesus itself, form the four corners, the institutional base, of this new house of studies.

The outside help that Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado draws to itself does not stop there. For years now ILADES and CIDE have been establishing and broadening contacts with Jesuit universities in the United States via joint programs and faculty exchanges in order to strengthen their academic bases. ILADES has been offering a master's degree in economics since 1988 in conjunction with Georgetown University and a master's degree in business administration since 1995 with Loyola College of Maryland.

"The first 48 students graduated recently from the joint MBA program," says Fr. Harold Ridley, SJ, president of Loyola College. "Our expectations are that this program will continue to flourish and that its graduates will take up leadership positions in the Chilean business world as strong advocates for social justice."

CIDE has also been offering one-year professional diplomas in "Educational Dimension of Social Projects" and "Management of Change in Educational Organizations" these past few years in cooperation with Loyola College.

Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado falls heir to this rich tradition of collegial exchange and cooperation fostered by its founding institutions and is itself planning to institute cooperative programs with Jesuit universities in the United States, including Fordham University, Loyola University Chicago, Loyola Marymount, and Saint Joseph's University.

The inauguration of the new university was an emotion-packed evening, but the celebration is over and the real work now begins. Students started classes this March in undergraduate programs that descend from programs at ILADES: business administration, sociology, and a two-year diploma program in philosophy and the humanities. This last program doubles as the Chilean Province's program for Jesuits in formation.

The faculty and staff and students will try to survive the initial weeks of the first semester. Not an easy task! There will no doubt be innumerable problems that we will face together. But in an era when heated discussions about the Ignatian identity of universities are to be found on the campuses of Jesuit schools across the United States and Europe, Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado will begin its task of educating men and women to see their professions as missions and new ways to serve.

The work of students and teachers and staff at this new university commences with a challenge Justice Minister Alvear offered at the inauguration ceremony:

"If the university is not able to interest itself in the discovery of a new vision of Chile, a new project for humanity that gives meaning, orientation, and coherence to all of our endeavors, and in particular to the intellectual enterprise, it will be failing its mission. It is a betrayal of the university spirit to form high-level specialists who are incapable of contemplating the whole of God's creation and human knowledge."

Author Fr. John W. Swope, SJ, sociologist and director of Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Educación (CIDE), is one of the co-founders of Universidad Jesuita Alberto Hurtado.

Social Activist One major topic of debate in the early twentieth-century Church was social doctrine. But Bl. Alberto Hurtado -- a Chilean born in 1901 -- did not simply talk about social doctrine, he lived it. He studied theology in Europe but came back to Chile ready for action: he worked with youth, founded an organization for Chilean workers, and wrote about society and the Church in his 1941 book, Is Chile a Catholic Country? He is best remembered as the founder of the Hogar de Cristo, a shelter for homeless children that has spread throughout South America. He died of cancer in 1952 and was beatified in 1994. by Carlos H. Parra-Pirela