A FOUR-YEAR hiatus does not spell death for UST’s Center for Creative Writing and Literary Studies (CCWLS).
Fourteen years after its establishment, the newly-furbished and much-improved center welcomes its new home inside the Benavides Building.
UST Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P. gave his blessings to the center last Jan. 22, which formally marked the revival of the new haven for Thomasian litterateurs.
“I decided to revive the center because I believe in its importance in molding the creative minds of students,” Dagohoy said.
The center went dormant in 2008 when the administration shut down all centers for assessment and to give way for streamlining.
“We, writers and artists, are not orphans. We are welcomed here,” said Cristina Pantoja-Hidalgo, director of CCWLS, as she invited professors and writers to embrace UST’s newly-reconstructed home for literature.
The CCWLS, which used to be under the Faculty of Arts and Letters, is now an autonomous unit under the Office of the Rector.
Hidalgo also said the recent renovation of the said office will highly promote heightened appreciation for literature not only for Thomasians, but also to everyone who is interested in writing.
Pantoja said in an interview with the Varsitarian that it was the Rector’s decision to relocate the office of the CCWLS because of the frequent flooding on the ground floor of St. Raymund’s de Peñafort building.
Along with the revival of the CCWLS is the comeback of TOMAS, a literary journal for literature and visual arts which was first introduced under the late Ophelia Alcantara-Dimalanta’s term as director. TOMAS will be produced once every semester. Jon Christoffer R. Obice
