Tag: June 3, 2004

IMAGINE yourself bragging to everyone that you are going to live a hundred years because you are a vegetarian and you keep a healthy lifestyle. However, before you even reach 40, you are already lying in a hospital bed undergoing treatment for lead poisoning. And you wonder, what went wrong?

The scenario may be far too exaggerated. But says the thesis of Faculty of Engineering students Gracielle Gamboa, Evelyn Evanglista and Sherlock Evanglista titled “Lead Concentrate in the Leaves and Stems of Brassica Juncea,” it is possible.

FIFTEEN new fellows, including the workshop’s first foreign participant, were named to the fifth UST Writers Workshop organized by the Center for Creative Writing and Studies (CCWS) held in Baguio City last month.

Workshop panelist Paolo Enrico Melendez disclosed that the UST-CCWS focused on those who are just starting out as writers and have not been a fellow yet of any writing workshops.

For this year, more than a third of the total participating fellows are Thomasians.

DRUG dependency can be cured by the “therapeutic community” model that uses peer pressure to wean the dependent away from addiction, according to a rare panel composed of ex-drug dependents during the 2004 Theology Week.

With the theme “Love, Compassion, & Solidarity in a Globalized World,” Dr. Benita Sta.Ana-Ponio, chair of the Committee on Addiction Psychiatry of the Philippine Psychiatric Association, talked on “Solidarity with Drug Addicts” at the Ecclesiastical Faculties Martyr’s Hall last month.

UST RECTOR Rev. Fr. Tamerlane Lana, O.P. celebrated the silver jubilee of his ordination to the priesthood last May 24 at the UST Chapel with family, friends, and the UST community. He urged everyone to support the priesthood.

“Father Tamer (Lana) has been a dedicated priest to God’s people for the past twenty-five years,” said the lector to acknowledge the Rector’s achievements before the celebrant marched in together with his family and the Dominican clergy of UST.

THERE was no Thomasian topnotcher in the 2003 bar exams, but the Faculty of Civil Law expressed satisfaction at the improved bar results, as UST earned a 55.69 per cent passing rate compared to last year’s 48 percent.

Faculty records show that out of 94 Thomasians, 59 passed the bar, 44 of whom were first takers and 15, retakers. This was an improvement from last year’s 48 percent, with 49 bar passers out of 102.

According to the Faculty of Civil Law Secretary, lawyer Lowell Culling, they were expecting higher results from the bar takers.

GONE are the times when students shade cards to evaluate their professors, as the new online evaluation will be introduced this coming semester.

Evaluators, composed of students and faculty members’ superiors, will occupy computer laboratories within their respective faculties and colleges at a given time for the online evaluation, according to project manager Rowella Raymundo.

They will then be given a username and a password to be able to log-in to the website, said Jaime Dolor, Jr., program webmaster.

PURSUANT to Republic Act 9266 or the Architecture Law of 2004, the College of Architecture (CA) will offer new courses by school year 2005-06.

CA Dean Augusto Concio told the Varsitarian the College is in the process of formulating competitive curricula for Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture. He said the two new courses would make better architects out of the students as they would specialize in those fields.

At present, Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture are minor courses for the BS Architecture degree.

THE DEATH of National Artist Nick Joaquin deprived Filipinos of not only the best Filipino writer in English, but also the most generous contributor to the retelling of our nation’s history.

In his necrological services at the Cultural Center of the Philippines last May 4, Joaquin’s niece, Cecile Joaquin-Yasay, said that her uncle was “the family’s storyteller, the one who could transport you back in time to experience what he did when they lived at the banks of the Pasig River.”

A POLITICAL survey and an exit poll showing presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr. winning the election stirred up a storm on campus because they were ostensibly done by UST professors.

Proberz Research and Consultancy Inc. (PRCI), the firm that conducted the national surveys, was questioned by other pollsters for the credibility of its polls. UST officials were alarmed when the Philippine Star reported that the surveys were done “by UST professors.” Seven UST faculty members conducted the surveys.

THE LOCAL graphic fiction industry has taken a bold step with SIGLO: Freedom (Kestrel Studios, Comic Ventures, 2003), a collection of short graphic stories exploring the country’s notion of freedom.