FIFTY honor graduates received scholarship grants in the Faculty of Civil Law, with hopes that one of them would be UST’s next bar topnotcher.
Reginaldo Oben, a Civil Law alumnus and 1961 bar topnotcher himself, donated P2 million to the faculty’s “scholarship fund” last June 7.
Divina said that similar grants were also given last year to attract honor graduates to study in UST. He said the faculty wanted to reclaim its “honor” after failing to land in the Top 10 in the last nine years.
Only 50 students received scholarship grants this year, or two less than the number of recipients last year, because of the high Quotient Point Index (QPI) requirement. Each scholar will annually receive P400,000, including book allowance and housing subsidy for five years.
“We have to diffuse three elements: good students, good faculty, and good staff. We have a good faculty, so we need to get the best students to produce bar topnotchers in the next few years,” Divina said.
Oben said he readily agreed to the establishment of the scholarship fund to help boost the faculty’s reputation.
“It is my hope that deserving, properly motivated and supportive students will be able to get the correct legal education that UST has to offer, and in the end, uplift its prestige of this faculty and its graduates,” he said.
Last year, P10 million worth of scholarship grants were donated by banker Antonio Go of the Go Kim Pah Foundation. Go challenged students and administrators of the faculty to make it as “famous as that small school in Boston.” Bernadette D. Nicolas with reports from Rafael L. Antonio
