Gala Night Program.p65 - Silliman University

When the first Filipino
President of Silliman
University, Dr. Leopoldo
T. Ruiz, gave his inaugural address at
our commencement on 6 April 1953,
he defined the true university as one
where, among others, there is
“constant enlargement of the horizons
of man’s knowledge...”
Until today, successive administrations of
the University have been measured against such
yardstick as defined by Dr. Ruiz, and as one of the
innovative academic programs introduced in the
university in the summer of 1962, this National
Writers Workshop is then one of those pillars of
the true university.
Indeed, whether in creative, research, or
academic writing, a university cannot be one
without a solid, stable program in writing. At
Silliman University, where the first three chairmen
of the English Department—Dr. Metta Jacobs
Silliman, Dr. Edilberto K. Tiempo, and Dr. Edith L.
Tiempo—shaped her destiny, the National Writers
Workshop was a natural progression that brought
the University into international prominence. And
as the brainchild of husband-and-wife team, Dr. Ed
and Dr. Edith Tiempo, another natural progression
is their daughter taking over—Dr. Rowena Tiempo-
Torrevillas, the Writers Workshop’s current
Director-in-Residence.
For the past three weeks, we welcomed to
this gathering of minds the creative writers who
are striving to perfect their craft in spite of a
rigorous journey in the process of discovering their
strengths and weaknesses. This is a program so
structured to develop one’s critical insights to
expand one’s knowledge—the true horizon of the
true university. For wasn’t it the American
management guru, Peter Drucker, who gave us the
From the
Acting
President