The Cebuano Studies Center of the university has preserved copies of The Carolinian of the early 1940s which contained bits of information about the first Dean and founder of the college. Fr. Bonk was in charge of the financial affairs of the Society of the Divine Word in the United States before he was transferred to the Philippine SVD. As a young priest, he was sent for post-graduate studies in business by the SVD to prepare him for an important assignment in the future. He went to De Paul University in Chicago for his commerce degree and finished the Master’s degree at Harvard University in Boston.
The SVD Fathers took over the administration of San Carlos College in 1935. They immediately realized the need for competent administrators for the growing departments of the College. When the need for a College of Commerce was established, the local superiors could only think of Fr. Bonk to be the Dean and founder of the new College of Commerce. He also took the post of Vice Rector and Treasurer of San Carlos College.
