SPEECH OF DR. JOSE FRANCISCO B.

BENITEZ DURING THE PRESIDENTS CONVOCATION HELD ON FEBRUARY 17, 2012 AT PWU CB HALL

Tita Helen, Chair of the PWU Board of Trustees, members of the Board of Trustees, Alumni, Deans, faculty, students, fellow members of the PWU family: good afternoon. This has been a busy year. This year, PWU celebrates its 93rd foundation year93 years ago, a group of idealistic teachers got together to dreamto dream of a free and independent republic and a citizenry worthy of this freedom. We are, as I said last June, fellow stewards of this dream. For almost a hundred years, the university has struggled, survived and succeeded because of its certainty of purpose. Through war and fire, political turmoil and financial difficulties, the universitys communityits faculty, students, parents, administrators and alumnihave stayed true to its crusading mission: to educate our youth to become full participants in and active contributors to a strong and vibrant democratic republic. At the schools founding, such an independent republic was still to come. Our students beheld and took part in our nations birth. But the challenges of building a strong and vibrant democratic society still remain. Each one of us here today stands as witness and representative of this enduring hope. It is to you fellow PWU crusaders, stalwart stewards of the dream for a better Philippines, that the university owes much of its continued existence, and from whom it continues to draw much strength. For some time, the university has labored under extreme conditions, and I thank you for your trust, steadfastness, endurance, and fortitude. Fellow travelers and stewards, this year is the year. Though many difficulties still beset us and our fiscal discipline must not diminish, I declare this year is the year. As we count down to our hundredth year, we can mark this year as the year we began to rebuild. This year, as many of you know, we welcomed Mr. Tanco and his group of companies into the PWU community. Their entry has allowed us finallyI am pleased and grateful to announceto begin some of the universitys much needed renovation and rejuvenation within the next month. We shall start with the repainting and repairing of our buildings facade. The problems with some areas of our roof and the flooding that occurs in the Paseo will finally be addressed. It is proposed that the Paseo be returned to a flat quadrangle to improve drainage on campus. We are ordering elevators to make the concert hall and the fifth floors more accessible. We are currently reviewing our IT infrastructure in order to improve our enrolment system as well as our computer labs, and we have already experimented with a potential tie-up with Globe to expand our distance education system. The vision of PWU as a university without borders will be revitalized by the creation of online interactive modules and live content streaming. Many more facilities enhancements are currently being planned to improve our students learning experience and our capacities to provide and sustain our excellence in education. There will be some disturbance on campus life, but we hope much of the work for the first phase will be finished before classes resume in June.

A few days ago, while I was speaking about possible improvements on our JASMS QC campus, a parent asked me if improving facilities were in and of themselves the answer to providing excellent education. I said that, though they help, it is the programs and the teachers that make the biggest difference. Let us remember that quality begets quality and excellence engenders further excellence. We stand firm in our insistence on quality regardless of constraints. And indeed the various units and schools have continued to develop and innovate in the absence of the improvement in facilities. This year, we finally began slowly raising faculty and staff salaries, and to improve faculty retention and development through an increase in faculty scholarships. The Office of Research instituted research conversations to cultivate the spirit of a transdisciplinary culture of inquiry among our various disciplines and schools. We shall in the next few weeks be announcing new procedures and policies for applying for internally generated research grants to create greater incentives and capacities for research. Much still has to be done in this regard and some issues will need to be addressed, but we have already progressed significantly compared to where we were even just a year ago. This year, the various schools have continued innovating their programs and creating linkages with international bodies as well as industry players. The School of HRM is currently exploring a training partnership with Goldilocks, while the School of Nutrition is exploring converting its pioneering Masters program in Clinical Nutrition, the only one of its kind in Asia, to a distance education modality; as is the School of Medical Technology with their pioneering Master's in Health Systems Management. International exchanges have been increased this year, starting with the special program from the University of Washington in Seattle in July last year. The School of Education has just recently finished hosting a large student exchange with Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University of Thailand, while the Philippine School of Social Work initiates a program with University of Labor and Social Affairs of Viet Nam this March, and the School of Nursing explores partnerships with Budi Luhur of Health Sciences Indonesia. Starting this summer, the School of Arts and Science will establish an Institute for Languages to teach ESL to our foreign students and help our current students in need of English improvement. The university has continued to be recognized for its educational innovations and we are now deputized by CHED to provide Expanded Tertiary Equivalency and Accreditation Programs (ETEEAP) in Social Development, Business Administration, Communication Arts and Fine Arts, and Hotel and Restaurant Management. The School of Music continues to excel and innovate. Our Music Performance Center supported by scholarships for gifted musicians continues to cultivate excellence in music. Our graduate student, Franco Maigue, has just won at the International Philippine Guitar Festival. Even as Music embarked upon a pioneering PhD program in ethnomusicology, the school also began developing a music technology program with

the idea of linking it to a digital media arts orientation in the School of Fine Arts and Design. The School of Fine Arts and Design (SFAD) was not far behind in garnering awards. In the recently held Philippine Information Agency painting competition, two of our students, Brendale Tadeo and Levi Cruz, won first and third prizes, respectively. SFAD students have also just won in the recent 5th Student Advertizing Congress. Along with the development of a digital media arts program, SFAD this year launched a new website and will be launching a Center for Visual Printmaking next month. The Center for Visual Printmaking will be done in collaboration with the Philippine Association of Printmakers and will return to PWU its pioneering excellence in the field of fine arts. SFAD is also exploring the possibilities of establishing a Center of Research for Heritage and Traditional Arts to enable the school, like the School of Music, to offer design and art competencies that span and bridge the traditional and the digital. Originally focused on educating women for civic participation and modern life, PWU dedicated itself to bridging home and work, the liberal arts and the professions, to linking domestic and political spheres in order to cultivate what then was called useful womanhood. Much of the needs for bridging the divides between family and work, between civil and political societies still remain today. Dedicated to a holistic and sustainable approach to individual empowerment and social development, the university endeavors to combine the various disciplines and suture that which modern life dividesdivisions that affect communities and families, that affect people regardless of their gender. One might argue that civic consciousness and democratic participation is of even more importance today than ever before. The university ought to be a place where public reason is developed, where the capacity to think critically and to discuss publicly solutions to community problems is encouraged. PWU has made it its mission, beyond civic consciousness, to cultivate individuals capable of participating and engaging with communities. This is apparent not only in the core curriculum of moral, social and civic education, but also in the insistence on social relevance in our academic programs. Along these lines, this year the Philippine School of Social Work, in conjunction with the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement, has applied for a program in Rural Reconstruction and Sustainable Development. The orientation towards sustainable development in the rural areas complements the schools programs in social work and development, and expands an old PWU thrust of sustainable rural and urban development and welfare. In the meantime, the School of Habitat and the Environment is developing an environmental management and planning program that has the human habitat and its relationship to the environment at its core. To complement and work with DIWA, the School of International Relations and Diplomacy, in conjunction with UN Women, is putting together a Center for Gender Equity and Empowerment, focusing on womens access to justice and human rights.

The apparently distinct focuses on the habitat, gender empowerment and justice, and the articulation of the urban and rural spaces for sustainable social development continue to be challenges for the university. These are not disjunct or disconnected concerns. How might these issues be interrelated? How might we find solutions to real social, environmental and political problems? How might we bring the process of this reasoning to our constituencies and communities? How might we engage communities and students in exploring answers to these problemsa function of our UNICORP, tasked with addressing community needs through integrated and interdisciplinary frameworks. These are old questions whose saliency does not decrease with time. We continue to ask them repeatedly and take the questions themselves as means to review and re-evaluate the answers and solutions that have been put in place. This kind of reflection will ensure that we remain on the right path. The hallmarks of a PWU education have always been our ability to constantly rejuvenate ourselves, to be forward thinkers, to be able to project and anticipate a future that is to come while combining continuity with modernization, being mindful of our heritage and remaining true to the core beliefs of our founding mothers and fathers. Fellow travelers and stewards, this year is the year. This is the year we begin to rebuild. We have not faltered in our vocation, we have not stumbled in our mission, and together we shall rise to the challenge of a bright future for PWU. As I have said before, I am glad I do not stand alone in this. Together we shall build the scaffolds for another hundred years. Maraming salamat at magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat.