ABREGANA
TO BECOME ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF
ASIAN CHRISTIAN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTE
United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia appointed Dr. Betty C. Abregana as Associate Director of its Asian Christian Higher Education Institute in Hong Kong on April 30, 2002 at its annual trustees' meeting in New York City. She has been a member of the United Board of Trustees since Year 2000.
Dr. Abregana has been a prominent faculty member of Silliman University in Dumaguete City, Philippines since 1981 in the Department of Psychology of the College of Arts and Sciences. She is an experienced administrator having been twice Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, from 1988-1989 and 1997-1999, and twice Vice President for Academic Affairs from 1990-1992 and from 1999 to present. She was acting president of Silliman University from 1992-1994.
Dr. Abregana received her PhD degree in Social Psychology from Ateneo de Manila University in 1987, and a graduate of Divine Word university of Tacloban in 1970 in Psychology and Political Science with an honor of magna cum laude.
As an established feminist psychologist and social scientist, she has traveled widely as a speaker and paper presenter. She has contributed to major international journals and books on Asian/Philippines universities, Asian women, Asian villages and village people as well as environmental issues in Philippine islands and seas.
She will begin her duty as Associate Director of Asian Christian Higher Education Institute on July 1, 2002. Asian Institute is housed in Hong Kong Baptist University. The Institute was founded in October, 2001 as an extension of the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia. She will be working with Dr. David Kwang-sun Suh, Executive Director of the Institute.
Commenting on Dr. Abregana's appointment to the Asian Christian Higher Education Institute, Dr. Richard J. Wood, President of the United Board, said: "The Institute is the most important new project the United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia has undertaken for many years. We are very fortunate to have Dr. Betty Abregana join this effort in a key leadership position. She is wonderfully well qualified to lead the Institute's developing programs dealing with leadership development in universities, service learning, and women's issues."
Timothy Light, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the United Board concurred, noting, "Dr. Abregana is a particularly skilled leader and administrator. We in the United Board have had the pleasure of observing her work through visits to Silliman and, in the past few years, while she has been one of our Trustees. She has an uncommonly keen and quick mind, as well as a command of an enormous body of experience in both scholarship and university leadership. We are indeed fortunate that she will join the Institute at this early stage in its development."
By Asian Christian Higher Education Institute
www. achei@hkbu.edu.hk
