THE COLLEGE of Tourism and Hospitality Management (CTHM) remains the most prolific producer of honor students, giving medals to four out of every 10 graduates this year.
CTHM had three summa cum laudes out of 158 honor students. Honor graduates accounted for 41.34 percent of the total, higher than last year’s 37.55 percent, and the highest recorded in the college since 2006.
While CTHM has been the top producer of honor students for two straight years, Dean Ma. Cecilia Tio Cuison said the college is really focused more on producing employable graduates.
“We are focusing on how we can produce [students] who will easily meet the standards of the industry,” she said.
Meanwhile, one in every 10 students marched with Latin honors in the entire UST graduating batch. The batch valedictorian, Rein Rodriguez, is again from CTHM.
Emerging as the second top producer of honor graduates is the College of Fine Arts and Design (CFAD), as 14.17 percent, or 53 out of 374 of graduates, received medals. This was higher than last year’s 12.12 percent.
CFAD College Secretary Jean Reintegrado attributed this to the “skills and diligence” of faculty members, noting that most of them are practitioners in the field.
“In CFAD, one subject takes 10 hours a week with projects and plates needed to be done,” she said. “The students are motivated by faculty members to do better and accomplish everything with better time management.”
In the Faculty of Pharmacy, the ratio of honor students to the total number of graduates dropped to 13.90 percent, with 87 honor students out of 626 graduates, from last year’s 16.37 percent.
The Faculty of Arts and Letters (Artlets) produced 114 honor graduates out of 829, or 13.75 percent. This was down from last year’s 15.50 percent.
Artlets was the top producer of honor graduates from 2008 to 2010.
Biggest drop
The Conservatory of Music, last year’s second top producer of honor students, reduced its ratio to 13.04 percent, or six honors out of 46 graduates, from 25 percent.
Music Assistant Dean Antonio Africa said the decrease was an indication that the conservatory is not giving away honors for the sake of it.
“It is just to make sure that students who get honors deserve them,” he said.
Rehabilitated
On sixth place, the College of Rehabilitation Sciences experienced the biggest surge this year with 10.37 percent, or 17 honor students out of 164 graduates, higher than last year’s 4.69 percent.
The College of Nursing followed with 37 honor students out of 458 graduates, or 8.08 percent, slightly higher than last year’s 8.04 percent.
This year, the Faculty of Engineering placed eighth with 88 students getting medals out of 1,109 graduates, or 7.94 percent. This was higher than last year’s 6.66 percent.
Meanwhile, the ratio of honor graduates to the total in the College of Science dropped to 6.58 percent from 10.82 percent. Thirty-five received Latin honors out of 532 graduates.
Of the six summa cum laudes in the University, three came from Science—one in Chemistry, one in Math, and one in Physics, Assistant Dean John Ramos said.
In College of Architecture, meanwhile, the ratio continued to slide with only 5.24 percent receiving medals, or 15 out of 286 gradates. This was down from last year’s 6.10 percent.
According to Architecture Secretary Warren Maneja, the decrease in honor graduates was due to the college’s new curriculum.
“The new curriculum is more focused at teaching so the students may have had trouble adjusting,” he said. “It’s also possible that this batch focused more on extra-curricular activities than academics.”
Maneja added that the college became stricter this year with the introduction of the Architecture Undergraduate Students Aptitude Test, which measures what the students had learned in their first three years.
“If they cannot pass this [exam], they cannot take their thesis,” said Maneja.
Business is slow
Like last year, the College of Commerce and Business Administration produced the lowest number of laudes, with only 39 students receiving honors out of 808, or 4.83 percent.
Records from the Registrar showed that the Neo-centennial batch had a total of 703 laudes out of 6,104 graduates, or 11.51 percent—628 cum laudes, 69 magna cum laudes, and six summa cum laudes, a slight decline from last year’s 11.96 percent.
Excluded in this report are AMV College of Accountancy, which will hold its graduation rites in June, and post-graduate courses in the University. Lorenzo Luigi T. Gayya and Andre T. Santiago
