1. John Carroll university • suMMer 2006 1
Dr. Luis Ma. R. Calingo
is the new dean of the
Boler school of Business
“The emphasis for
my first six months
will be on finding out
what our customers
expect from us and
learning how we can
be of better service
and value to them.”
John Carroll university • suMMer 2006 1

2. 1 John Carroll university • suMMer 2006
Dr. luis Calingo is the 51-year-old embodi-
ment of the university’s commitment to
engage the world. the new dean of the
Boler school of Business was raised in the
Philippines, and began his academic career
in america with an asian perspective.
in the 26 years since he came here
as a graduate student in 1980, Calingo
has assimilated a comprehensive
understanding of the best contemporary
business practices, particularly in the area
of strategic planning. he has also carefully
developed state-of-the-art skills as a bridge
builder between the business cultures of the
u.s. and those of the world, especially the
increasingly economically important asian
portion of the world.
Calingo has engineered many connect-
ing business and academic links, and there
is a reasonable expectation that he will
expertly guide John Carroll’s students and
faculty across them in the years ahead.
When he went to singapore in 1993
on a three-year leave from California state
university, Fresno, Calingo devoted much
of his prodigious energy to interpreting the
american corporate world to the Chinese-
majority students and academics of that
tiny economic powerhouse on the tip of
the Malay Peninsula. at the Monterey
institute of international studies, where
he went on another academic leave at the
conclusion of his singapore sojourn, the
son of two Philippine engineers became the
point person for the interpretation of asian
business culture to the graduate students at
the prestigious school.
this very Catholic, deeply dedicated
family man is not simply a translator of
diverse business cultures. When he goes
to vietnam, thailand, Mongolia, singa-
pore, the Philippines, sri lanka, among
other destinations, his principal mission is
generally to carry and transmit the most
advanced understanding of quality control,
productivity, strategic planning and other
aspects of best business practices
– the same body of knowledge he im-
parts to american organizations and
students. invariably in the course of
his consultative engagements, Calingo
teaches the businessmen of vietnam,
for example, how to talk to and work
with the businessmen of California…and
ohio. With his american listeners, he
pursues the obverse mission.
as the friends of his three daughters
might say, Calingo is “hooked up;” he has
strong lines of connection with a wide range
of academic and business leaders on both
sides of the Pacific basin, as well as in other
parts of the world. Before coming to John
Carroll, he was previously, in turn, the dean
of the business schools at California state
university, Fresno and California state uni-
versity, long Beach. at nanyang university
in singapore, asia’s largest academic busi-
ness center, Calingo was the leader of the
new program in international business that
he helped shape in the mid ’90s.
Calingo is a veteran member of the
board of examiners of the Malcolm Bal-
dridge national Quality award, a sig-
nificant vehicle for the communication
of best business practices in this country.
he helped establish a similar award in the
Philippines and in so doing came to the
attention of leaders in vietnam. Meta-
phorically speaking, vietnam told thai-
land, which told Mongolia, which told
sri lanka… that’s not quite the way the
communication process occurred, but the
outcome is the same: Dr. luis Calingo has
become a presence in the asian move-
ment to improve productivity and quality.
next year there will be a brief Fulbright-
sponsored teaching presence in Bangkok
in which he will lecture about quality
indicators to academics at thailand’s finest
educational institutions.
all of this means that the new Boler
dean’s rolodex is likely to become an im-
portant asset for John Carroll. For example,
when he was at long Beach, he was able
to achieve a significant academic alliance
with Bangkok’s thammasat university, an
institution which normally scorns partner-
ing liaisons with schools that, like long
Beach and JCu, do not grant doctorates.
Calingo says, “ten years from now,
China is going to be the world’s largest
economy, and i hope that John Carroll will
look across the Pacific, not only across the
atlantic, and i look forward to contribut-
ing to that process.” While at long Beach,
he established educational partnerships
with institutions in Guangdong, Jiangsu,
liaoning and sichuan provinces of China.
luis Calingo was born in 1955 in Que-
Baby Luis with his
family in Quezon
City, Philippines
1 John Carroll university • suMMer 2006

3. John Carroll university • suMMer 2006 1John Carroll university • suMMer 2006 1
zon City, the second most populous city in
the Philippines and a part of Metropolitan
Manila. Mariano and lucia Calingo were
graduates of a private engineering college.
their son says now: “i probably inherited
my bias for systematic approaches from
both my parents.” Mari-
ano worked in mosquito
control and lucia was a
cum laude grad in chemi-
cal engineering. Circum-
stances led to their both
being employees of the
nation’s bureau of motor
vehicles.
though, with both
parents employed in
good government jobs,
the Calingos were not
poor, the fact that there
were six children dic-
tated that, when he was
in the sixth grade, the
Calingo brood switched
from private Catholic to
public schools.
life changed dramatically shortly after
as lucia Calingo died at the time luis was
12. With five younger siblings, the new dean
reflects, “i became a surrogate mother very
early on.” he knew and was ever after faith-
ful to the cultural principle that the Filipino
child carries a high responsibility for the
care and education of the younger children.
some years later, luis was a student activist
who, amidst a Ferdinand Marcos-imposed
martial law, curtailed his protest activities
because of family responsibilities.
he says he was a lonely, motherless
boy during his first years at the selective
university of the Philippines high school.
his alienation was exacerbated by the fact
that most classmates were from wealthier
Filipino families. When he talks about this
period, Calingo stresses that he became
aware of poverty – not that of his family,
but the crippling deprivation afflicting so
much of Philippine society.
a passion for social justice grew and
shaped his life. though he came to see
business and economic development as his
chosen agency of social change, Calingo’s
conversation makes it crystalline that he has
never lost his sensitivity to poverty and his
determination to help make things better.
he says he thought for a time of becoming a
lawyer and that if he had, he would probably
have been a human rights lawyer. he also
had his first exposure to the Jesuits during
his high school years, and he caught from
them a passion to be a man for others.
one of the interesting aspects of Calin-
go is that he was a student activist with a
deep commitment to social justice, who
was also an ardent member of the legion
of Mary, which is where he met his future
wife, Gemeline. after early elementary
education with stern spanish augustinian
recollect friars, his education was at public
institutions, but in Catholic Philippines,
supplemental religious instruction is nor-
mative, and for luis Calingo that became a
strong line to orthodox Catholicism.
after his mother’s death, he was moved
by her conviction that “life is what you
make it.” he created a church choir when
he was in high school. as his managerial
drive bubbled up, it found expression in
organizing the altar boys and leading them
to weekend discussions of Catholic social
teaching. talking about being drawn to lib-
eration theology, with its radical social and
economic critique, Calingo’s often smiling
face reflects the awareness that this leftist
version of Catholic social thinking went out
of favor during the papacy of John Paul ii.
his definitive judgment
is, “i cannot be a cafeteria
Catholic.” though he hap-
pily does much of his work
with those of other reli-
gions, Calingo is a deeply
committed Catholic, espe-
cially in recent years. he
said the practice of his faith
had become lukewarm
about the time he went to
singapore, but that some
health issues and his spiri-
tual path led him toward a
more fervent commitment
to Gospel values.
his parents imbued
him with the conviction
that government could
be a vehicle for change.
When he graduated from the university of
the Philippines with a degree in industrial
engineering, Calingo went to work with a
governmental, aiD-funded, development
project that sought to organize farmer associa-
tions, finance and build small-scale irrigation
systems and mechanize farming to serve the
impoverished people of the land.
he earned a master’s in urban and re-
gional planning during this late ’70s period.
he was later seconded to imelda Marco’s
ministry of human settlements, where the led
the development of a program to build model
communities run by housing cooperatives
in the countryside. Calingo says the progress
was important, and that there were times he
brought a change of clothes because he chose
to work through the night.
But in 1980, the new guy in the Boler
dean’s office made a decision to become
a change agent and a man for others by
equipping himself with advanced knowledge
tools. With Gemeline, who had become
his wife, Calingo came to the university
From left, Luis, daughters Ashley, Alexandra and Arienne and wife, Gemeline.

4. 1 John Carroll university • suMMer 2006
of Pittsburgh. During four years there, the
couple experienced the harshness of winter,
the absence of their culture, customary food
and family. however, with his fierce work
ethic, luis earned an MBa and a P.h.D. in a
far shorter period than usual and the couple
was soon far away from winter in the too hot
but academically hospitable climate of Cali-
fornia state university at Fresno.
Calingo says that he felt that he had to
work twice as hard there because he had
come from a different culture, and that he
did. as a management professor at Fresno,
he published many books and articles,
earned tenure, and became dean of a busi-
ness school that then had 2600 majors. he
was also instrumental in securing a $10
million gift that led to the school being
named for sid Craig, the corporate leader
of the Jenny Craig weight loss corporation.
luis and Gemeline also became the
parents of their three daughters during
these first Fresno years. uCla alumna
ashley is a graduate student in public
health at san Diego state; alexandra is
a freshman at Berkeley, and arienne is at
home with her parents on Fairmount Blvd.,
and is a student at Gilmour academy.
Calingo had health issues at that time
that were aggravated by the intense pace
of his work life. his response – to move
his family to hyperkinetic singapore and
plunge into a highly productive period of
his career – may seem amusingly contrain-
dicated, but he attests that at that juncture,
he re-prioritized his life, putting family first
and learning not to carry stress home. he
was an academic force at nanyang techno-
logical university, but he said he came out
of this period healthier and happier.
on Calingo’s return to Fresno, the
elite graduate business school at the Mon-
terey institute, midway on the California
Coast between l.a. and san Francisco,
summoned him and Fresno said yes to an-
other leave. the Boler dean spent the bet-
ter part of three years there, and his main
role was to be the institute’s leading voice
on international organizational behavior:
“‘Power distance’ is the belief that inequality is
normal and superiors are entitled to more privi-
leges ... Eastern Europe, Latin American and
Asian cultures tend to be collectivist.” Calingo
analyzed the world’s varying cultures and
articulated likely managerial strategies and
tactics in light of the cultural typologies
explored with his students.
in the context of his Monterey period,
Calingo said, “everyone has a unique
endowment, and i believe that in my case
part of it is in teaching and being able
to contribute to someone else’s learning.
When you see someone’s eyes sparkle or
detect an ‘ah ha,’ there is the validation
that you have done quality work.”
California state university, long Beach,
discerned that Calingo did quality work as
a teacher and administrator. at the end of
the millennium, he was recruited to be the
dean of that los angeles area institution’s
College of Business administration.
the task was challenging inasmuch as
the college was on what amounted to accred-
itation probation. Calingo hired more faculty
with doctorates, oversaw greater research
and publication and installed an assessment
system. he also implemented a successful
community and donor outreach effort – one
of the blessings that came from that initiative
was a transformational gift to fund the ukleja
Center for ethical leadership.
the academic leader was at long
Beach for six years. he commuted on
weekends to his family home in Fresno,
living from Monday through thursday
with his father and brother in l.a. he did
the same thing when he was at Monterey.
these commuting arrangements were
indicative not of a casual commitment to
family life, but of the opposite.
he, a self-described conservative on
family matters, and Gemeline determined
that they didn’t want to raise their children
in southern California, and – in the case of
the Monterey interlude – that the stability
of home and school for the children were
paramount. Calingo says now, “My wife
looks forward to our being together seven
days a week.” he attributes much of his pro-
fessional success to the sacrifices and support
that Gemeline and their three daughters
have given him.
the Boler school of Business is much
smaller than either of the business schools
of which luis Calingo has been dean.
he says the school’s “Catholic and Jesuit
identity was at the heart of John Carroll’s
appeal for me. he also says, “i liked Fr.
niehoff’s theme of engaging the world.
this is what i hope to accomplish.”
Part of what he hopes to accomplish!
he says he is intent on curriculum re-
newal so that the Boler school is able to
attract the best students. “a great business
school has four components,” declares
Calingo, a man of modest but confident
demeanor. “it has superior academic pro-
grams and offerings, the best and brightest
students, great faculty, and fine facilities,
including technology.”
Calingo views being an external dean
as a critical part of his mission, and he has
begun conversations with alumni business
leaders such as Jack Breen ’56, edward
Muldoon ’48, and, of course, the man for
whom JCu’s business school is named.
the dean says his “emphasis for my first
six months will be on finding out what our
customers expect from us and learning
how we can be of better service and value
to them.”
in the next issue, John Carroll plans to
capture a dialogue between John Boler ’56
and Dean luis Maria Calingo about the
strategy that will be employed to achieve
an even higher level of excellence for the
John and Mary Jo Boler school of Business.
1 John Carroll university • suMMer 2006