The Whys of University orientation

Title

Creator

Sinco, Vicente G.

Language

English

Year

1969

Subject

Universities and colleges.

Education.

Foundation University (Dumaguete)

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Not many people have a definite idea what a university is for. This article may be of help in this matter.

Fulltext

■ Not many people have a definite idea what a university is for. This article may be of help in this matter. THE WHYS OF UNIVERSITY ORIENTATION Our country will be much better off with an educa tional system, sufficiently comprehensive, aimed at what our people need as may be revealed in studies and perceptive observations carried out by persons qua lified to plan and to work out institutions and courses especially fit to promote ideals and values deemed in dispensable to the virility of the citizen and the nation. The form, substance, and structure of the cultural, so cial, political, and moral constituents of the life of our people should be mould ed or erected upon patterns of our own choice and pre ference rather than on pat terns furnished by outsiders. This is not to say that we should disregard or throw overboard everything foreign, for this action is impossible to carry out; and if it could ever be done, it is bound to injure us in several ways. But we really have to realize that we have adopted foreign practices and notions uncri tically simply because we want to ape the American or European no matter how offensive they may turn out to be to our ideals and va lues. In education, for ins tance, we have to admit that our schools, colleges, and universities up to now bear all the distinctive earmarks of their foreign counterparts imitated superficially and in several cases adopted thoughtlessly and with some degree of belief in their un proved excellence. Much of the poor or defective educa tional performance of Fili pino students in general is traceable to this feature and practice in our schools in our efforts to transplant the heart of a system that the nature of our conditions cannot accept and assimilate. 6 Panohama Educators of high caliber are called upon to under take the innovative task. It is a task that challenges mind, the imagination, and vision. But educators, if true to their profession, should accept whatever mea sure of necessary sacrifice such task demands for its realization. We could not have seen the development of a strong germ of Filipino nationalism if its original champion in the person of Jose Rizal had preferred to enjoy the comforts and splen dors of the centers of cul ture and civilization abroad instead of coming back to the modest environment of his country with all the dis comforts and the relatively primitive conditions which had to be slowly changed and improved. It is regrettable that pre sent-day Filipinos with their higher education do not seem to see the meaning of Rizal’s life in this light and to follow the example it of fers to them. Many of them consciously avoid the educa tional and cultural chal lenges of our provincial com munities. There are even some who feel proud and superior in being associated with institutions that have but a superficial sympathy with our nationalistic efforts and that silently adopt a condescending attitude to wards Filipino organs for higher education. It is obviously a matter of personal egoism and con venience that causes many of us to ignore the challenge of patriotic service outside the metropolitan centers. We see in this aloofness the continued servility to colo nial standards and values and the indifference to the more satisfying rewards of self-reliance which needs time, determination, and pa tience to produce superior results. Foundation University of Dumaguete aims at leading the Filipino youth away from strictly colonial values by impressing on their cons ciousness the importance of self-dependence and the re acquisition of the best of national traits which are re vealed in their history but which have long been over looked and so may wither on the vine if not redis Matjch 1969 7 covered, nurtured, treasured, and refined. Coming down to our work at this particular moment, we are now busy preparing our faculty members under the leadership of deans and heads of departments in pre paring a comprehensive pro gram of University Orienta tion for its faculty. It con sists in a series of informal discussions, covering, among other, the following subjects: the meaning, nature, and purpose of a civic and secu lar university; the nature and method of the work of university teachers; the na ture of the work required of its students; the need for adequate libraries, labora tories, and other facilities as instruments of university education; the necessary qua lifications, practices, and at titudes expected of univer sity faculty members; and the essential conditions for the maintenance of a uni versity atmosphere as both cause and effect of the in tellectual and cultural im provement of the university population. The need for a University Orientation as briefly des cribed here is unavoidable in understanding the essence of higher education for Fili pinos. But it has not been realized, much less observed, in this country for several reasons: one is the obvious failure of those who estab lish and administer univer sities in this country to iden tify and distinguish the es sential nature of a univer sity from that of a secondary school or a vocational or technical school. This fail ure arises from several causes. One of them is the absence of a tradition of devotion to intellectual work and ex cellence. A professional edu cation which is really voca tional in nature and purpose, commonly understood by many of our people as higher education, is really defi cient in intellectual depth, breadth, and intensity. Law and medicine, for example, which were known in highly developed countries as the learned professions, are pur sued in our schools more as vocational occupations call ing for skills in action, ma nipulation, and outward ob servation rather than for in tensive mental concentration Panorama and scientific or cerebral ac tivity. Another cause is a sim plistic and purely literal in terpretation of the provi sions of the Philippine law that to be a university an institution should have at least four colleges and a gra duate school plus a library of at least ten thousand vol umes. These formal and mechanical conditions do not necessarily indicate that the institution is engaged in higher learning, that its ad ministrators understand the mission of a university, and that its faculty is actually devoted to the pursuit of knowledge and the quest for truth. After meeting these legal requirements, an insti tution feels entitled to be called a university especially when it has attracted a large student enrollment and two or three teachers with doc torate degrees or diplomas. But formal conditions re quired by our statutes, refer only to the external compo sition and appearance of the institution. They do not provide evidence of internal intellectual growth, educa tional activity directed to wards the improvement of knowledge, and an academic atmosphere which provides the mind of teacher and stu dent with an intangible mi lieu that generates an actual intellectual ferment. Coming down to the case of Foundation University, is there any real significance in the change of its rank from that of a college to that of a university? Has it ever occurred to its teach ers, administrators, and stu dents that a university should possess certain marks and attributes that it should posses by virtue of their de votion to learning and their interest in the quality of their performance? Or have they merely assumed that an institution automatically changes its character, pur pose, goals, and procedures by the fact of the change of its name or by the fact that the Department of Education has authorized it to change its status from college to university? Is it realized by our educators that the rank of an institu tion of higher learning should not be awarded mere ly by reason of age and artMarch 1969 9 tiquity but should be merit ed by a satisfactory record of performance within its area of educational work and scope of action? It is time that we in this country should realize the importance of University Orientation to stir and awaken administration and faculty to the educational significance of this status. It is essential that through them, the students should be correspondingly aroused and indoctrinated. If they are not collectively made aware of the meaning of the change, it is because they have but a faint idea of what it is expected to be done in the field of higher education. But this condi tion should not remain un corrected, if the university is to perform its proper role in the improvement of a people. Hence, it is intel lectually unpardonable for an. organization bearing the title of university without understanding its true char acter, purpose, and proce dures as a higher institution of learning. A college that bears the title of a university should have the intrinsic qualities and the essential conditions of a high center of learning. Should not this be the case, what is called a university may be merely a glorified high school. It cannot prac tice, cultivate, and produce habits of self-education, self analysis, and self-criticism. But a university has to en gage in the work of free academic inquiry and in the pursuit of intellectual dis covery. Its teachers and stu dents must ever be exposed to intellectual stimulation so that they may learn to experience the ecstacy of mental, moral, and humanis tic achievement. Unless they understand the meaning of higher edu cation and the mental ener gy and the moral stamina it demands, our universities and their students and teach ers will merely spend useless hours and weeks of self-de ception devoid of the bene fits and value of intellectual stimulation and vigor. In that case, our institutions will not and cannot really qualify as universities or higher institutions of learn ing. - V. G. SINCO 10 Panorama

Media