BUSINESS magnate Lucio Tan is now a certified Chemical Engineering graduate after receiving his second academic degree from the University last Oct. 3 at the Benavidez Library Auditorium.
Tan got his bachelor’s degree under the Expanded Tertiary Education Equivalency and Accreditation Program (ETEAP), an educational assessment scheme similar to non-thesis track degrees.
“ETEAP recognizes knowledge, skills and prior learning obtained by individuals from a non-formal education experience,” Office of Planning and Development director and former Engineering Dean Alberto Laurito said.
Laurito said Tan, who received his doctorate degree in Business and Commerce under the ETEAP program in Sept. 2003, applied for the Chem Eng degree last January when Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. was rector. Laurito headed the committee that handled Tan’s application.
He said that Tan, who owns companies like Fortune Tobacco, Philippine Airlines, and the University of the East, documented his experiences as a chemical engineer and the dates and places where he worked, before a panel of chemical engineers last July 28 at his Asia Brewery plant in Cabuyao, Laguna.
The panelists were Philippine Institute of Chemical Engineers (Piche) National President Nuna Almanzor, Philippine Association for Technological Education President Carla Falconit, Piche Vice President for Luzon Erma Quinay, UST Engineering Alumni Association board director Romeo Sanglang, UST Chem Eng Department chair Bernadette Duran, former Chem Eng Department chair Evelyn Laurito and professors from the Chem Eng department, namely, Maria Natalia Dimaano, Edna Quinto, and Michael Francis Benjamin.
The Commission on Higher Education launched ETEAP in 1998 to recognize non-formal education of individuals with adequate learning experience in a chosen field, granting them degrees. UST grants undergraduate equivalency degrees in Electronics and Communication Engineering, Nursing, and Journalism. R. S. Mejia
