THIS early, the University is already planning the curriculum changes for school year 2003-2004.
However, according to Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Fr. Antonio Aureada, O.P., they are still waiting for the revision of the University’s vision-mission which would guide the academic thrust of UST. “Once you want to innovate something, you have to innovate it from principle. Without that, things would be like groping in the dark,” he said.
The academic revisions will be aligned with the reinvented Thomasian profile.
“We would like to project a Thomasian profile, a picture of how our graduates should be—a critical thinker, a creative writer or designer and an articulate speaker so all activities, whether academics or extra-curricular, should be geared towards creating this profile,” Fr. Aureada said.
As part of the curriculum changes, he said the University plans to streamline some courses. Thus, some courses will have to “die a natural death” or be “twinned” with another major, either from the same college or from another college, to allow the students to graduate with a double degree.
Meanwhile, Fr. Aureada said he is proposing the creation of three more University-wide departments—the Department of Numbers, the Department of Critical Thinking or Philosophy, and the Department of Environmental Sciences.
The Department of Numbers would review math-related subjects and promote Information Technology.
The Department of Critical Thinking or Philosophy would improve Logic and facilitate the application of Logic principles whether in written and oral arguments.
The Department of Environmental Sciences would seek to improve the instruction of the biological sciences, with stress on the environment.
There are also plans to “ladderize” the language subjects, Fr. Aureada said.
In this system, students would take a diagnostic test to determine their language aptitude. The test results would be categorized to A (excellent), B (very good), C (good) and D (poor).
If the student belonged to the A or B category, he or she would skip the 12-unit English course and opt to take Spanish, Nipponggo, Mandarin or Korean.
However, if the student belonged to the C or D category, he or she would have to complete the 12-unit English course.
Meanwhile, College of Architecture dean, Arch. Augusto Concio, plans to have an interface with the Faculty of Engineering and the College of Science to insert more computer-related subjects into the curriculum.
“This will further boost our potentials in winningmore competitions in the future and prepare the students in facing the challenges of the 21st century,” Concio said.
However, Concio noted that even if the cognitive skills of the Architecture students were sharpened, they still have to improve their communication skills.
