THE NEWEST crop of Thomasian graduates, dubbed the “Double Jubilee Batch” by Vice Rector for Religious Affairs Fr. Filemon de la Cruz, O.P., produced almost a thousand Latin honor recipients, the highest number in nearly a decade.
Batch 2016 had a total of 979 Latin honor recipients out of 8,801 graduates, with 13 summa cum laudes, 98 magna cum laudes and 803 cum laudes.
The Faculty of Pharmacy had the most number of honor graduates with 157 Latin honor recipients: three summa cum laudes, 27 magna cum laudes, and 127 cum laudes.
Pharmacy’s Rhys Jansen Pavon is this year’s batch valedictorian, with a general weighted average of 1.121. He was also one of the recipients of the Rector’s Academic Award.
Pharmacy Dean Aleth Dacanay said the integration of an outcomes-based education curricula with course plans contributed to the high number of honor graduates.
“We will be making 70 the cut-off grade for all students from our previous 75 passing mark. And that’s quite high for a college like this,” Dacanay said.
The Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) produced 146 honor students—the highest in the faculty’s history.
Artlets Dean Michael Anthony Vasco said the increase in the freshman admission test cut-off score in 2012 raised student quality.
“We have [a] highly selected freshmen batch in 2012, and these are the freshmen students who graduated this 2016,” he said. “[Looking] at the IQ (intelligence quotient) mean score, it’s really high from that 2012 batch [of freshmen].”
Vasco said the faculty was planning to implement a general percentile average (GPA) requirement for Artlets, but this was withheld because of the K to 12 transition.
CTHM, Law
The College of Tourism and Hospitality Management (CTHM) continued to have the highest ratio of Latin honor recipients to the total number of graduates.
During its graduation rites, one out of four graduates got a Latin honor.
CTHM produced 114 honor graduates out of 456 compared with last year’s 103 out of 428.
The UST Graduate School produced 74 honor graduates this year, data from the solemn investiture program of the college showed.
The Faculty of Civil Law produced just one honor graduate this year from last year’s two, with Aprille Mae Kaye Valentin topping batch 2016. Valentin obtained a GPA of 87.55.
Civil Law Dean Nilo Divina said “it is not unusual” to have a lone honor graduate in law schools.
“The requirements to obtain [a] Latin honor in law school are very stringent. [Having] only one law student graduate with Latin honors is not unusual in UST and other universities,” Divina said in an interview.
Engineering, Commerce
The Faculty of Engineering, College of Commerce and Business Administration, College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD), College of Architecture, Institute of Information and Computing Sciences (IICS), and the UST-Alfredo M. Velayo College of Accountancy also had more honor graduates, but they were few as a proportion of the total number of graduates.
Engineering’s honor roll swelled from last year’s 39 out of 774 to this year’s 54 out of 841.
Commerce and CFAD produced 59 honor graduates out of 916 and 92 honor graduates out of 564, respectively. Last year, Commerce had 37 honor graduates out of 841 while CFAD had 74 out of 459.
Architecture and IICS had 32 honor graduates each, out of 393 and 481 graduates, respectively.
Accountancy produced 53 honor graduates out of 753, compared with last year’s 52 out of 755.
The Conservatory of Music’s honor graduates increased to 14 out of 70 from last year’s nine out of 64 while the College of Education’s honor roll went up to 44 out of 482 from last year’s 40 out of 432.
The College of Science’s honor roll likewise swelled, surpassing last year’s 56 out of 614 honor graduates with this year’s 68 out of 643. The College of Rehabilitation Sciences registered 30 honor graduates out of 242, higher than last year’s 17 out of 258.
The number of honor graduates from the College of Nursing declined. It produced only 10 Latin honor recipients out of 346, from last year’s 13 out of 453.
Excluded from this report were figures from the Ecclesiastical Faculties, Institute of Physical Education and Athletics and the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery. With reports from Monica M. Hernandez
