In his rector’s address last September 3, 2009 at the Martin de Porres Auditorium, De la Rosa announced that by 2011, UST will construct 400 sustainable Thomasian villages all over the country to be dubbed as the “Thomasian GK Village” as part of the University’s Community Services and as an offering to the nation for UST’s 400th year celebration.
“By the end of the project we did not just build a nation but what Pope John Paul II calls ‘a civilization of love’,” he said.
Community and Extension Services
De la Rosa said that the community services provided by the University aim to uplift the lives of the marginalized. UST’s Civil Welfare Training Service (CWTS) program and Literacy Training Service program (LTS) will remain to be the main community development programs, guiding the students as they reap “seeds of genuine service which will accompany them in the world of work.” For the past school year, more communities were served during the two semesters of community outreach activities conducted by students and facilitators of CWTS and LTS.
De la Rosa also spoke of the success of the UST’s Samahan Kamanlalakbay (SK) project, which reached out to various provinces such as Sitio Malasa and Sitio San Martin, providing them with 2-way radio educational seminars and scholarship programs labeled as “Distance Education”. Also, UST’s Kasambotika project headed by the College of Pharmacy, which provided livelihood opportunities for partner communities, proved a success.
Guest Speaker Lina Sanchez, a teacher, mother, and Aeta from Sitio Bamban in Tarlac, proudly stated how they are now able to write in their own ballots for the upcoming elections because of the seminars and scholarship programs, which helped them to become literate. The Aetas experienced major positive changes in their lives with the aid of UST’s Re-Entry Agenda of the Poor (REAP). Lina “I molded myself though seminars through the radio given by UST,” she said.
UST received the Most Outstanding Higher Education Program Award granted by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) for its dedication in helping the community, with an increase in the number of adopted public schools, 23 partner communities, and 95 student projects. De la Rosa further said that research will remain to be one of the University’s top priorities as it is a means to help eradicate poverty and apathy.
UST’s Standards Remain Competent
For school year 2008-2009, De la Rosa said that an astounding 43,320 applicants took the University of Santo Tomas Entrance Exam (USTET) but only 10, 781 were admitted. In terms of intelligence quotient (IQ), 19.41% students attained 110-119 points while only 2.68% reached the 120 mark of very superior intelligence. Reflecting the result’s implication that majority of the students have an above average mental capacity, Thomasians continue to reap awards and recognitions in fields of research, mathematics, sciences, visual, performing and liberal arts, locally and internationally. De la Rosa said that we owe it to the faculty members who guides the students in their various endeavors and molds them into God-fearing sensible citizens. Former Justice Angelina Sandoval-Gutierrez, a UST Faculty of Civil Law alumna who was among the speakers during the rector’s address, hailed UST as the “greatest pillar of learning in the Philippines”. She said the university prepared her for the responsibility she was to face when she was justice of the Supreme Court. “I am mighty proud to be a Thomasian,” she said. “Miguel the Benavides left us with the university and his dream to build a nation,” the Rector said, remembering the mission that the university’s founder, started and left UST with.
– Alona Mandigma & Laura Angeles (with reports from Denison Dalupang)
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