What does Silliman mean to you?
This question resonates with the hundreds who come home to their Alma Mater on Founders Day. They start pouring in towards the third week of August, into the 28th — the birth date of Silliman. But celebration starts as early as the first week and is wrapped up on the 31st.
“Silliman Spirit”, many say, is what defines them as Sillimanians. It is the personal warmth and closeness that one has for another. It is that which naturally establishes the bond that one batch creates to another, one generation has for the next.
Today, Silliman turns 112. From a school that started on August 28, 1901 with only 15 boys, it is now home to over 9,000 students — 300 are foreign students from close to 30 countries covering Asia, America, Africa and Europe. And every year, a good number of them return “home” for the Founders Day, which is in itself a tourist attraction of Dumaguete City.
“Joyfully Lift Up the Lamb” is the theme that guides the 112th Founders Day celebration. It is inspired by two biblical passages: John 1:29: “The next day, John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”; and Revelation 5:13: “To him who sits in the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, forever and ever!”
Listed in the 2013 Founders Day Calendar of Activities are around 280 entries, color-coded according to three categories: General Founders Day Events, Organized by Reunioning Groups and Organizations, and Silliman University Alumni Council of North America (SUACONA)-sponsored. The calendar lists the Tabo, a showcase of Filipino delicacies in celebration of LinggongWika, as the first event in what has become a month-long commemoration of the University’s founding anniversary; and a sports tournament handled by the Athletics Department concluding the celebration on August 31.
A Sunday service on August 18 at the Silliman University Church formally opened the 112th Founders Day celebration, with Atty. Jose Riodil D. Montebon, Legal Counsel of the Silliman University Medical Center, delivering the sermon. He focused on the topic “The Lamb of Life”.
Eight other major events are the SUACONA 12th Anniversary Gala Night and Dinner on August 24; Eminent Persons Lecture by former National Treasurer Prof. Leonor M. Briones, Heritage Builders Awards in honor of 14 long-serving deceased personnel, and the Order of Horace B. Silliman on Mrs. Grace Lim-Kho on August 26; ParadaSillimaniana (Founders Day parade) on August 27; and the Sunrise Service with 1994 Outstanding Sillimanian in Environmental Journalism Mr. Adlai Amor, and the Outstanding Sillimanian Awards on August 28; and the 52nd Church Workers Convocation on August 30.
Close to 300 alumni based in the United States add to the regular influx of participants in the Founders Day, with the University being the host of Tipon Silliman 2013, a biannual gathering of alumni and friends in North America and Canada organized by SUACONA.
