When he arrived in Barranquilla (1952), where he would be known as "el profesor Assa" (teacher Assa), this polyglot (Ladin, French, German, Spanish, Catalan, English, Dutch) founded the Instituto de Lenguas Modernas (1952), becoming since then one of the main promoters of education and culture in the city. He also founded the Concert of the Month Foundation (1957), the Escuela Superior de Idiomas, the Universidad Pedagógica del Caribe, the Instituto Pestalozzi, the Faculty of Education of the Universidad del Atlántico and the Instituto Experimental del Atlántico José Celestino Mutis (1970), where, in his own words, he tried to propose a form of Christian Socialism.
In his weekly column El Rincón de Casandra (The Corner of Cassandra) (he adopted the pseudonym in an allusion to the Greekpriestess), published in the El Nacional, del Caribe and El Heraldo newspapers, he defended and promoted culture and education in Barranquilla for more than 40 years. These columns were compiled in two volumes on the initiative of the Atlántico Governor's Office in 1994, two years before his death.
Instituto de Lenguas Modernas.
His last wish was to donate his body for practices at the Faculty of Medicine of the Universidad Libre de Colombia, Barranquilla. He died in Barranquilla on 13 March 1996.
As a tribute to his personality and his dedication to education, several schools have been named after him. Likewise, out of his great efforts to achieve that poor students had access to scholarships to study abroad, in 2004 the mayor of Barranquilla created the Instituto Distrital de Crédito para la Educación Superior Alberto Assa (District Institute of Credit for Higher Education), a public institution to award scholarships and educative credit; however, it was liquidated in 2009.
Simón Bolívar medal, awarded by the Colombian Ministry of Education (1992).
Puerta de Oro de Colombia medal, silver category, awarded in 1992 by the Atlántico Governor's office.
In 1998, the Atlántico Governor's office named the extension of the 51B street (also known as Puerto Colombia highway or "Universities corridor") as "Alberto Assa" because there are several universities and high schools alongside.
Dictionnaire de guérrilleros et résistants antifranquistes 1936-1975. [1]
LARDÍN I OLIVIER, Antoni. Condicions de treball, conflictivitat laboral y militància política clandestina: Els obrers industrials catalans i el PSUC (1938–1959). Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, 2004. Tesis doctoral. [2][permanent dead link]
