Tag: No. 3

THE UNIVERSITY plans to integrate with other Dominican schools and build satellite campuses beginning next year, in a bid to extend Thomasian education beyond the four walls of the Sampaloc campus.

In his first Rector’s Report last Oct. 16 at the Medicine Auditorium, Rector Fr. Herminio Dagohoy, O.P. said the University would continue to pursue the construction of UST’s satellite campuses in General Santos (GenSan) City in Mindanao and Sta. Rosa, Laguna early next year.

LESS than a year before the K to 12 education reform goes full swing, UST saw a slight decline in freshman enrollment, data from the Office of the Registrar showed.

A total of 13,615 freshmen were admitted in the first term of this academic year, down by nearly one percent or 115 enrollees from last year’s 13,730.

The UST-Alfredo M. Velayo College of Accountancy recorded the biggest drop in freshman enrollees at 18.28 percent, or a decline of 876 students from last year’s 1,072.

“We accepted 24 classes last academic year so that means we have fully utilized the classrooms. So we cannot accept more than this number [of students],” Accountancy Dean Patricia Empleo said in an interview.

UST is “all-systems-go” as it prepares to host the 2015 Bar Examinations for the fifth straight year.

Faculty of Civil Law Dean Nilo Divina said feedback from Supreme Court Justices had been positive as regards to UST as venue for the bar exams.

“It’s all-systems-go for UST, the memorandum of agreement has been signed between UST and the Supreme Court,” Divina said in an interview.

The 2015 Bar Examinations is slated on all four Sundays of November. Like in previous years, a liquor ban will be implemented around the campus. The sale of beer and other alcoholic products between 4 a.m. and 8 p.m. will be prohibited during examination days.

THE LAITY were called to turn their devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary by helping the poor during the celebration of the feast of La Naval de Manila at Sto. Domingo Church in Quezon City last Oct. 11.

Devotees were encouraged to let the Lord enter their lives and use their faith to support the poor with the theme, “Inang Maria: Kalakbay sa Pagharap sa Hamon ng Karalitaan at Kabanalan.”

Fr. Delfo Canceron, O.P., a Dominican preacher based in UST, recalled how the Blessed Virgin accepted the responsibility of being the mother of Christ in his homily. “Si Maria ay bukas-loob sa kalooban ng Diyos kaya nagsimula ang kasaysayan ng pagkakatawang-tao ng Panginoon,” Fr. Canceron said.

AFTER winning a fresh term, UST Faculty Union President Dr. George Lim plans to make sure salaries will not be affected by the University’s plan to transfer college faculty to UST Senior High School (SHS) as part of the transition to K to 12.

Lim said the union would seek a meeting with the Department of Labor and Employment to discuss the benefits and salaries of faculty members to be moved to senior high school.

“We are looking at several alternatives so the faculty member will not feel the difference [in the salary], so there will be no difference at all,” Lim said, without going into details.

THE UNIVERSITY dominated the October board examinations for certified public accountants (CPA), but recorded a lower passing rate in the licensure exams for mechanical engineers last September.

UST was named the second top-performing school in the CPA exams after 364 Thomasians passed out of 382 examinees, or a 95.29-percent passing rate, results from the Professional Regulation Commission showed.

This was significantly higher than last year’s 67.53-percent passing rate, in which 52 out of 77 examinees passed the exam. Last year, the UST Alfredo M. Velayo-College of Accountancy added another year to its curriculum. As a result, Thomasian examinees last year were composed of repeaters and those who did not graduate on time.

THE UST College of Architecture is set to gain local accreditation from a local accrediting agency—a first since its establishment in 1930.

Architecture is set to be granted the Level I accreditation status by the Philippine Association of Colleges and Universities Commission on Accreditation (PACUCOA) for the period June 2015 to June 2018.

THE UST Graduate School will soon be offering extension programs in the “Queen City of the South.”

The Graduate School has established a partnership with the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, its fourth, to offer extension programs for masteral degrees in Marketing Communication and Fine Arts.

Other universities that the UST Graduate School has partnerships with are the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City for its Master of Laws and Master of Science in Pharmacy programs; Ateneo de Davao for its Master of Arts (MA) in Architecture program; and Aquinas University in Legazpi City for its MA major in Library and Information Science and Master of Laws programs.

FOR ITS FINAL year in office, the administration of President Benigno Aquino III is proposing the largest national budget in history and the first annual outlay to cross the P3-trillion mark. Is it pork barrel-free?

Bayan Muna party-list Rep. Neri Colmenares warns that the graft-prone pork barrel system still persists in the national budget in the form of “lump-sum appropriations.”

The 2016 lump-sum appropriations, he claims, amount to more than P573 billion.

Lump-sum budgets are viewed with suspicion as they do not contain details on how the money would be spent.

BEWARE, teachers who bully students.

A bill seeks to include high school and elementary teachers among those covered by the Anti-Bullying Act of 2013 and distinguish the “fine line between teacher discipline and abuse.”

The bill mandates the Department of Education (DepEd) to provide training for teachers and assistance to guidance counselors on how to discipline misbehaving students “without resorting to corporal punishment.”

Senate Bill No. 2793 is “not punitive” in nature but rather a guide for school officials to properly instruct students, said Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara, principal author of the anti-bullying law.