From August 3-6, nearly 400 presidents, faculty and administrators from Jesuit institutions and organizations across the world gathered at Boston College for the 2022 Assembly of the International Association of Jesuit Universities (IAJU). The theme of this year’s assembly was ‘Discerning the Future of Jesuit Higher Education,’ which built on the theme, ‘Transforming Our World Together,’ from the inaugural IAJU assembly at the University of Deusto in 2018. 

Participants at Boston College included members of IAJU Task Forces on Global Citizenship; Solidarity with Migrants and Refugees; Peace and Reconciliation; Environmental and Economic Justice; and the Role of Theology in Today's Jesuit University. Task Force members shared updates on their collaborative work to develop programs and initiatives that have been implemented at Jesuit colleges and universities across the world since 2018. Additional sessions included a pre-assembly workshop on ‘Democracy Under Threat’ and group break-out sessions on the Magis Student Exchange Program; Reinventing Jesuit Business Education; Best Practices in Mission Integration & Formation; Developing a Laudato Si' University Plan; Reconciliation and Peace Centers; African Jesuit Universities; and Secularism, Religious Pluralism and the Jesuit University. 

A highlight of the assembly was a keynote address from Jesuit Superior General, Rev. Arturo Sosa, S.J., who delivered his remarks in Spanish. He said, “The members of the IAJU are called to discern from the ground of the identity that is their reason for being, the principle and foundation of their mission, and the bond that unites them. Many universities have been examining this identity in recent years. We have been invited to return to its sources during this Ignatian year. It is the same spring that fed the long and complex discernment in common of the Universal Apostolic Preferences of the Society of Jesus, and it still flows to make fruitful the apostolic works that put the preferences into practice.” 

On the last day of the assembly, members of each regional association that comprises IAJU had the opportunity to meet with Fr. Sosa for 30-minute conversations in which a group of representatives shared challenges and aspirations for higher education in their geographic regions. Later in the afternoon, one representative from each regional association gave a “report out” to all assembly participants that included recommendations for the next IAJU strategic plan. 

You can find Father General’s Speech here. 

ACJU