status before its commencement exercises on March 22, 1958, he would rename it after the saint. An hour before the commencement exercises, then-Secretary of Education Manuel Lim sent a telegram stating that Ateneo de Cagayan now had university status.
On August 27, 1958, it was inaugurated as a university and officially became Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan. It became the first higher education institution in Mindanao to receive university status, a year before its sister school, the Ateneo de Manila. At the inauguration banquet, President Carlos P. Garcia received the first honorary degree conferred by the university.
== Campuses ==
Xavier University – Ateneo de Cagayan operates on four campuses:
The eight-hectare main campus in the heart of Cagayan de Oro, where the undergraduate and graduate academic units are located;
The 50-hectare Manresa Complex in front of SM City Cagayan de Oro, which is used as the experimental and demonstration farms and extension works of the College of Agriculture, as …
