Fr. Joel E. Tabora’s collection of recent writings are put together in a new book entitled Coming Together, Moving Forward, published by the University Publications Office (UPO) in coordination with the Office of the President.
The book compiles, in 234 pages, the selected writings of Fr. President from the time he assumed office as President of the Ateneo de Davao University (ADDU) in 2011 until the present. The writings are categorized in three major sub-headings: Speeches, Personal Reflections and Homilies.
The collection captures a rich tapestry of the personal musings and thoughts of a university president over a period of three years – infancy years, relatively speaking, which witnessed the vibrant engagements of Fr. Tabora not only in his capacity as a dynamic president of ADDU but also as the indefatigable leader of many educational associations, both local, national, and even international.
His all-too liquid mind captures the breadth of human imagination where he ruminates on the philosophical and theological underpinnings of the search and the love of the truth as the ultimate end of all educational endeavours.
As a prolific writer (who thinks philosophically), he dares in taking his readers and audiences (since many of the selections were intended as addresses to be read publicly) to frontiers of thinking, even as he judiciously – and to a greater extent, audaciously – takes up the cudgel of providing a wider platform for discourses on such topics such as Reproductive Health, mining, environment, K-12, Quality Assurance, CHED’s proposed typologies, among other controversial issues of the day.
In many of his personal reflections and homilies, he highlights leadership (that is sui generis) anchored on the core educational philosophy of Jesuit higher education, Ignatian spirituality, the search for social justice and the common good, the role of the university through its vision-mission, and a host of other lofty human ideals.
As a Jesuit priest, he offers edifying reflections on such exalted leitmotifs ranging from love, to loyalty, suffering, spirituality, worship, sacrifice, theophany – matters that were written with such empathy and compassion in the eloquence that they so right deserved.
An earlier book on Fr. Tabora’s selected writings has previously been published at Ateneo de Naga University (ADNU) as a concrete expression of honouring him as he concluded his term as its president. For a Tabora reader, this new tome is intended to continue the tradition of capturing and understanding the mind of one of Ateneo’s most prolific writer-presidents, as well as an attempt at understanding the wider expanse of ADDU’s direction under his spirited leadership. (By M. Isabel S. Actub of Arrupe Communications & Advocacy, for the Office of the President)