Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P has said he was open to reviewing student policies amid criticism over the “conforme” document put online as a requirement for enrollment in the University this academic year.
Provisions of the Student Code of Conduct and Discipline uploaded to the MyUSTe Student Portal were posted on social media last month, triggering an online firestorm against UST.
The University, being a Catholic institution, prohibits cohabitation without marriage, engaging in relationships that are “contrary to the principles adhered to by the University and the teachings of the Catholic Church,” cross-dressing, and organizing or joining assemblies that would create “unnecessary noise or disturbance.”
These offenses, which have long been in the UST Student Handbook, are punishable by suspension, non-readmission, expulsion or exclusion, depending on the gravity.
“Definitely [we’re planning to look into it like] the way we responded to cases in the past,” Dagohoy told the Varsitarian at the sidelines of the opening exercises for the new academic year last week.
Dagohoy, however, said the conforme document contained no new provisions.
“That’s not a new thing in the University… [S]ome people thought that this is something new because it became online but we have been doing that [for a long time],” he said.
He said a “concerned office” decided to put UST’s student rules and regulations online to “facilitate the ease of enrollment,” with no intention of stirring criticisms.
The conforme seeks to “to form and improve the students’ character, attitude and moral values, as well as to develop their intellectual, physical and psychological fitness.”
