Facts about the University of San Carlos
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Part of The Carolinian
- Title
- Facts about the University of San Carlos
- Language
- English
- Year
- 1965
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- F ABO c t s ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT HIE UNIVERSITY OF SAN CARLOS (also known as the Divine Word University) of Cebu City, Philippines, is conducted by the So ciety of the Divine Word and dates back to 1595 when the first college in Cebu was founded by three priests of the Society of Jesus: Pedro Chirino, S.J., Antonio, S.J., and Antonio Pereira, S.J., and which in 1606 was named Colegio de San Ildefonso. Upon the expulsion of the So ciety of Jesus from the Philippines in 1769, the college was closed but was reopened in 1783 by Bishop Mateo Joaquin de Arevalo and was conducted by diocesan priests. It was renamed Colegio-Seminario de San Carlos. From 1852 to 1867, the Colegio Seminario was assisted by four Dominican Fathers and in 1867 entrusted to the Congregation of the Missions (C.M.) or Vincen tians. In 1935 the collegiate section under the name of Colegio de San Carlos was entrusted to the Societv of the Divine Word (SVD) while the seminary section in a separate building known as Seminario de San Carlos remained under the ad ministration of the Vincentians. On July 1, 1940, women were first admitted to the Colegio de San Carlos. From December 8, 1911, until August 1, 1945, classes were inter rupted by World War II. On Sept ember 12, 1944, the college build ing which the Japanese Army then occupied as headquarters as well as for the storing of ammunition was completely destroyed by the Ameri can Air Corps. All the present buildings were constructed after the war. On July 1948, the college was given the status of a university under the name of University of San Carlos. In 1963, the generalate of the Society of the Divine Word changed the name of the university to the Divine Word University although the old name is still large ly used. ADMINISTRATION AND ORGANIZATION The administration consists of a President, Vice President and Board of Trustees. The latter elects the Vice President and the Secre tary General and also its own Chairman and Secretary. It con trols the general management of the University. The President is as sisted by the Academic Senate, composed of Regents and Deans of the different colleges and some as sistant deans. The faculty consists of profes sors, associate professors, assist ant professors, senior and junior instructors, assistant instructors and lecturers. The proportion of lay to religious members is 6:1. There are 220 lay teachers (88.3%) and 29 religious teachers (11.771. Each teacher has an academic deg ree: Doctor’s, Master’s or Bache lor’s. The teacher-student ratio is 1:21. The non-teaching staff con sists of administrative and main tenance staffs all of whom, with few exceptions, are Filipinos. All the faculty members are Catholics. The university consists of a Graduate School and six colleges: Liberal Arts, Law, Commerce, Education (Teachers College); Engineering (Institute of Tech nology) and Pharmacy. It also con ducts a high school and elementary school for girls and boys and mixed primary school and kindergarten. Page Twenty THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965 UT THE UNIVERSITY OF CEBU CITY, PHILIPPINES SAN CARLOS CURRICULA The Graduate School offers the following degrees: Doctor of Phi losophy in Philosophy, Education and Anthropology; Master of Arts in Education, English, Philosophy, Anthropology, Guidance, Teaching English as a Second Language and Economics; Master of Science in Business Administration, Physics, Mathematics, Chemistry and Zoo logy. The Colleges have the following departments: College of Liberal Arts and Sciences — Theology, English, Spanish, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Psychology, Social Sciences. Philosophy, Mathematics College of Law — (not divided into departments) College of Commerce — Account ing, Commercial Laws, Busi ness and Management, Secreta rial Science College of Education (Teachers Col lege) — Secondary Education, Elementary Education, Home Economics College of Engineering and Archi tecture (Institute of Techno logy) — Civil Engineering, Me chanical Engineering, Electri cal Engineering, Chemical Eng ineering, Architecture College of Pharmacy — (not divid ed into departments) Summer sessions are also conducted by the university. Students finishing their pre Engineering training in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are submitted to an examination on ap plication for admission to the In stitute of Technology for their pro fessional training and arc tested to determine their talents. Those that show talents for engineering or architecture are allowed to en ter the institute to pursue these courses. Those who show talents in the crafts arc eligible for training as high-grade skillful mechanics of one form or another of which the nation stands in so much need. The fatter are granted diplomas in ser\ - ice engineering. The library consists of 78,697 well-selected volumes, including a collection of rare Filipiniana books. The principal research programs of the various departments arc: Anthropology: ethnology of the Negritoes, comparative linguistics of the Filipino Languages, archae ology of the pre-Spanish inhabit ants of the Visayas; Biology; taxo nomy and ecology of the flora and fauna of the Visayas especially the island of Cebu; Geology-Paleonto logy: the paleontological fauna of the island of Cebu ; Chemistry: the chemistry of local marine, lacustran, river and ground waters: Pharmacy: the pharmacology of Philippine medicinal plants. The Coconut Foundation carries on re search in matters pertaining to the coconut. The Natural History Mu seum of the Visayas and Mindanao has the following departments: botany, zoology, anthropology, geology and paleontology-. RELIGIOUS LIFE Although most of the students (96'< ) are Catholics, non-Catholics are welcomed. The latter consist mostly of Protestants, Aglipayans, Moslems and Buddhists. Non-Cath olics are not obliged to attend Catholic Theology classes and they are not urged to attend Catholic services. There is no compul sory program obliging Catholics to attend services or receive the sacraments. They are, however, en couraged with good results to take advantage of the ample opportuni ties provided for them to attend re gularly mass and receive the sacra ments. Classes in Theology (Reli gion) are offered for four semes ters in college. The Legion of Mary, the Student Catholic Action, the Sodality of the Blessed Virgen and St. Vincent de Paul Society arc counted among the Catholic stud ent organizations. ACCREDITATION The University is one of the char tered members of the Philippine Accrediting Association of Schools, Colleges and Universities (PAASCU). ENROLMENT The total enrolment of the Uni versity proper as of the beginning of the school year 196-1-1965 con sists of 6,318 students distributed as follows: Graduate School 168; Commerce, 2167; Liberal Arts and Sciences, 1111; Teachers College, 1512; Engineering, 918; Pharmacy, 140; I,aw, 94; Boys High School and Elementary School, 1102; Girls High School and Elementary. Pri March-April, 1965 THE CAROLINIAN Page Twenty-One mary, and Kindergarten School, 1298, making a grand total of 8,718. Any graduate from high school is eligible for admission to the col leges. No entrance examinations are held because of the scholastic differences between students com ing from cities like the City of Cebu and those from the mountain vil lages. Talented but poorly trained students are allowed one or two years to show their worth. Instruction is given according to traditional patterns consisting of lectures, seminars, laboratory work, with a limited amount of audio-visual helps such as movies and slides. FINANCE The University possesses no en dowment and is non-profit making. The operational finances come from students’ fees and tuition as well as the contribution of the non-salaried members of the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and the Sister Servants of the Holy Ghost (S.Sp.S.) staff members. The of fice of the SVD Universities, 316 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Il linois, U.S.A., under the direction of Reverend Dr. Ralph, SVD, as well as the Generalate of the So ciety of the Divine Word contribute an annual grant for the develop ment and expansion of the univer sity. A Quadricentennial Every sick or suffering Catholic should be made to realize that he is a storehouse of vast potential spiritual wealth and energy. All that he has to do to release this power is to switch on his will and make it attune with Christ’s. Thus attuned and armed with his morn ing offering, he can each day scale spiritual heights. With his suf ferings united to those of Christ’s, he can have anybody’s good for the asking. With his sufferings, he can help to satiate, even by gulps, Christ’s unquenchable thirst for souls. Flat on his hospital bed, or tied to his wheel chair, he can rescue thousands of souls who, as one of the saints saw in a vision, every minute fall like autumn leaves into the abyss of eternal fire! Is this not spiritual romance and ad venture sufficient to rouse one’s soul into action? Let us therefore awaken our sick PUBLICATIONS Aside from student publications such as THE CAROLINIAN, a quarterly; the UNIVERSITY BULLETIN, a weekly and the SEMPER FIDELIS, an annual, the university issues two series of scientific publications; one in the field of natural sciences and the other in the field of humanities known as SAN CARLOS PUBLI CATIONS. EXPANSION AND STATISTICS The Coconut Foundation which concerns itself with coconut re search operates a Pilot Plant which extracts oil from fresh coconuts, hydrogenates the oil into fatty al cohols and sulfates the latter into detergents. With the aid of grants from the Central stelle of Aachen, Germany, the university construct ed (1963) a new and modern Teachers College as well as an In stitute of Technology (1963) which superseded the former College of Engineering. The Institute of Tech nology is closely associated with the Coconut Foundation. APPRAISAL The University, because of its Catholic moral traditions and prac tices, up-to-date equipment, compeent teaching staff and relatives high scholastic standards is regard ed as one of the leading universities of the Philippines. • • (Continued from page 19) and suffering Catholics to the fact that they are not as useless and miserable as most of them imagine themselves to be. The cheerful of fering of all the sufferings that they have to undergo can greatly lessen the heavy load of mission ary work. Let us harness the spir itual power that lie dormant among our poverty-stricken people. If all they have is poverty, they can still lovingly offer it together with all the hardships that poverty entails. None of us therefore can justly say that he can not help because he is handicapped, because with a good intention, even handicaps can be made meritorious. There are count less opportunities of making little sacrifices. All you have to do is to be willing to make them. And surely, it is not too much to ask every Catholic from Aparri to Jolo to offer a Hail Mary each day for (Continued on page 36) C-ke. .Santo J^ino (Continued from page 13) finding of that relic... A confra ternity of the Most Holy Name of ■Jesus teas then established with the same rules as that of St. Au gustine in the city of Mexico. The exigency of the situation would not have demanded perma nent structures so that the provi sionary church would have been of light native materials. This did not last long, no doubt, and more so after Legazpi transferred his colony to Panay to evade Portuguese at tacks. It was only in 1575, three years after the colony was re established by Legazpi, that the foundation for that first stone building was laid which took twenty-seven years to finish. Meanwhile, through unexplained reasons, the Santo Nino made its appearance in the home of Dona Catalina Jimenez, who is said to have belonged to one of the lead ing families of the time. This Lady is said to have taken reverent care of the image of the Holy Child which her husband, Captain D. Juan Rodriguez, one of the first colonizers of the island, gave to her. There is strong reason to be lieve, however, that the image of the Santo Nino was returned to the church sometime after this was finished in 1602 for when this church was burned to the ground twenty years later, it is said that only the Santo Nino was saved from the ruins. Church and convent were again rebuilt but on May 8, 1628, were once again reduced to ashes. The building were rebuilt once more during the priorship of Fray Juan de Medina. The present church and convent, now popularly known as San Agustin, rather than San tisimo Nombre de Jesus, were started about the year 1730. This took a decade to finish and it was not until January 16,1740 that the Santo Nino was finally enthroned in the new, and still extant, sanc tuary. The Spread of the Devotion to the Santo Nino of Cebu As the primary center from which the devotion to the Santo Nino was spread throughout the islands, Cebu had been chosen as the center of propagation of the Faith, already playing its role of missioner for almost half a cen(Continued on page 47) Page Twenty-two THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965