THOMASIANS from the College of Nursing and the Faculty of Arts and Letters are invading the classrooms of other UST departments as they are straining the capacity of their respective buildings.
University Registrar Rodolfo Clavio said the colleges have a hard time allocating classrooms.
“It’s not necessarily overcrowding (the University),” he added. “We just have to maximize our facilities.”
Some Nursing sophomores are holding their classes at the UST Hospital’s Clinical Division as their College had increased its quota from eight to 10 sections.
According to Nursing Dean Glenda Vargas, the College accepted more sophomores instead of freshmen because it wanted to develop “quality” students instead of cutting off more students during the screening process to meet the previous quota.
Meanwhile, Nursing students, some Artlets students are now holding classes outside the faculty.
Artlets Faculty Secretary Prof. Lino Baron said the college had to borrow classrooms from the High School Department since the College of Commerce and Accountancy, from whom the Faculty borrowed classrooms for the last two years, also had an increase in population.
“Considering the number of enrollees, even other colleges have the same problem,” Baron said.
As of June 30, the data from the Registrar’s office showed 7,304 freshmen, roughly 200 more than the number of enrollees at the same time last year.
Despite the increasing demand for nurses, Vargas said the College accepted only 536 students from about 18,000 applicants, less than last year’s 540. On the other hand, Artlets admitted 915 freshmen compared to last year’s 853. Reagan D. Tan
