“SPECIAL tasks,” such as a number of Quadricentennial activities, hampered the progress of the Quadricentennial Central Student Council’s (CSC) pet projects, including the long overdue Students’ Code.
Reviewing the CSC’s performance in the previous academic year, Leandro Santos II, who recently ended his term as council president, noted that the CSC’s original projects were replaced by activities in connection with the year-long ‘Q’ festivities.
“Although we wanted to [continue with our] projects, we decided to focus on the festivities, because UST will celebrate its 400 years only once in a lifetime,” Santos said.
The council worked together with the Office for Student Affairs (OSA) for the Quadricentennial Week in last January, organizing the “Q Parade” and coming up with the idea of a “Quadri Fiesta.”
“Expectations were very high,” he said. “The planning stage that we (CSC) and other offices went through concerning the celebration was rigorous.”
Still, the CSC was able to intensify awareness of the proposed Students’ Code, making it accessible to students by putting up tarpaulins containing key provisions around the campus.
According to him, the code is now at the Office for Student Affairs for review after consultations with the Student Welfare and Development Board, which resulted in some revisions.
Once approved, the code should be incorporated into the constitutions of local student councils to avoid “vagueness” and inconsistency, Santos said.
“This is what we are leaving for the next batch of CSC officers to accomplish—to erase the vagueness [of the constitutions of the respective colleges],” Santos said.
A number of projects originally included on the CSC checklist for Academic Year 2010-2011 were accomplished, despite demanding requirements of the Quadricentennial year.
These include “Infoblast,” an information dissemination campaign that broadcasts announcements such as the suspension of classes and ‘Q’ updates through mobile phones; “Diamonds,” a forum attended by all local student council treasurers which talked about fiscal accountability; “Shape Up to 400,” the council’s health and fitness project; “Growls: 400 characteristics of a true Thomasian and UShouT Tagline contest,” which sought to boost Thomasian pride; and book drives.
New administration, old challenges
On the matter of “unfinished businesses,” such as the proposed Students’ Code, newly elected CSC vice president Peter Carlo David said the new CSC officers aim to not just to continue, but put an end to these projects.
The new CSC president, Lorraine Taguiam, said the Students’ Code would be put on a plebiscite. If it gets a favorable response from students, it will be submitted to the Rector for approval.
“We will ensure its full and immediate implementation around the campus,” she said.
Taguiam, however, said the new CSC won’t be focusing solely on the Students’ Code. There will be “long-term projects.”
“We aim to [establish] mandatory grievance committees in classes and rebuild the Legal Assistance Team, which is to be headed by the Faculty of Civil Law,” she said.
Aside from these, community development, academic excellence, and environmental awareness are on top of the agenda for Academic Year 2011-2012.
“As part of our agenda, we are planning to hold tutorials with our academic scholars, and to check the curriculum standards of different colleges and faculties, focusing on the policy side,” she said. “We also plan to impose a selective ban on styrofoams and plastics around the campus.”
The new CSC officers also plan to undertake a “collaborative community development project” with all local student councils apart from participating in UST’s “Simbahayan” project.
“We have an obligation to every student, and we can only fulfill that through the local student councils. With their help, there should be no major problems,” David said.
Student participation is a vital factor in the success of the projects, he reiterated.
“We’re very open to different options. Some are drastic like making participation mandatory, but the best solution we can think of is to organize activities that would be interesting to students,” he said.
Taguiam also called on local student council officials to help the CSC boost student participation.
[Local student councils] are directly involved in the students [activities]. With their help it is likely that information will reach Thomasians, and more will be encouraged to participate to in the council’s activities, she said. Nigel Bryant B. Evangelista and Marnee A. Gamboa
