Select faculty members got together recently to further educational development in UP toward being truly transformative of society, which relies upon the faculty as its main intellectual resource.
The two-day UP Faculty Conference 2024, the fifth since the 2009 conference held in Subic, Olongapo, began on Sept. 18 at Diamond Hotel, Malate, Manila, with VP for Academic Affairs Leo Cubillan suggesting his vision of “Transformative Education in the Service of the Nation,” the theme of the conference.
Explaining the conference framework, Cubillan highlighted the usefulness of the design thinking approach for developing university constituents that are agents of change.
National University of Singapore President Tan Eng Chye delivered the second of plenary addresses that aimed to give the participants a clearer grasp of aspects of transformative education. Tan shared the NUS experience of transforming its curriculum to produce “future talents” through “integrated learning.”
He spoke of a common or core curriculum that would prepare students for employment, and the alumni for continuing education, while also supporting their personal development in a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Professor Emerita Maria Serena Diokno presented local and international literature endorsing public engagement beyond making for the public, mere recipients of university produce. She warned against populism and bureaucratic thinking, which were antithetical to the life of the mind.
Faculty Regent Carl Marc Ramota presented the recommendations of the last UP system-wide public service summit, which included: institutionalizing service learning and community engagement in the curriculum; incentivizing such activities by increasing the percentage of public service in faculty merit promotion, and establishing a public service productivity award, grant, and mobilization fund; and harmonizing public service load credit across units.
He ended his presentation by making a call for the promotion and protection of academic freedom.
Through video presentations, UP’s eight constituent universities and one autonomous college shared their respective units’ roster of projects and programs that could be aligned with the thrust of transformative education.
The second day of the conference, which was part of a series that began during the UP Centennial celebrations and was revived after a seven-year hiatus, began with the orientation of participants on the Collective Mentorship Research Program being developed by Dr. Percival Almoro, AVP for Academic Affairs (Research). He offered the program to the participants for feedback and further refinement.
The participants then focused on breakout workshop discussions, later synthesized by Dr. Jose Antonio Clemente, AVP for Academic Affairs (Faculty Development). The participating faculty members, mostly heads and representatives of their departments, together with UP System and UP constituent unit officials, broke into 27 workshop groups. They discussed the aspects of transformative higher education discussed on the previous day. This enabled them to come up with their own visions and discuss the workability of programs and projects of the units with the strategic thrust.
Clemente said in his synthesis of the proceedings that the conference was able to give answers, albeit “tentative,” to the tensions and questions arising from the theme.
The participants were urged to initiate in their respective units a review of undergraduate curricula in view of a desired common/core curriculum, and of the minimum qualifications for merit promotions; and documentation of what they consider as public service.
On the evening before the conference formally began, UP President Angelo Jimenez welcomed the participants, who, aside from the UP System and constituent unit executive staff members, came to more than 220 faculty members. The revival of the UP System-wide faculty conference was an initiative of his office in partnership with the UP Office of the VP for Academic Affairs to better reflect UP’s “public mission” or its main strategic thrust. The last faculty conference took place in 2017.
Jimenez also closed the conference. “I notice that everywhere I go, there is a light that follows this platform,” Jimenez referred to the UP presidency. “It’s not my light, it is your light,” he told the faculty. “How do I see the University? You’re a shining city on top of a hill, for Filipinos looking for inspiration. UP is that brilliance in the dark.”
More photos from the 2-day conference.
