The Administration of DLSU-Manila is contemplating setting up a University College (UC), which will offer general education and pre-baccalaureate programs to prospective freshmen.

The general education program includes the core curriculum featuring basic courses in the humanities, mathematics and natural sciences, and the social sciences. On the other hand, the pre-baccalaureate program, or the “bridging year” is a one-year pre-college program for students who have the potential but did not meet the cut-off scores in certain areas in the entrance examination.

he proposed UC will service both the DLSU-Manila and DLSU-College of St. Benilde.
Vice President for Academics and Research Brother Andrew Gonzalez, FSC said that the UC will offer a “special freshman program” which will help students prepare for serious study and research in the second year when they start taking major subjects. By integrating a holistic student service and an enriched general education program, the UC would aid students in “resolving their adolescent conflicts” and make them more decisive in choosing their fields of specialization later on.

The general education (GE) will offer a more streamlined curriculum by getting rid of subjects considered duplications. “We’re trying to reduce the number of subjects so that we can study these subjects in depth,” he added. With this arrangement, a student may spend a year or two for GE in the UC before transferring to the DLSU-Manila campus. The committees working on the UC are still discussing where it will be located.

Brother Andrew stressed that the UC is at the level of brainstorming. “We’re culling the best ideas to come up with a renewed general education program that will achieve the job better than what we have now.”
Placing the freshmen in the UC will afford the University to concentrate on research. The faculty will then have the option whether to do mostly teaching at the UC or mostly research at the main campus.

Brother Andrew said that faculty members “who would rather be good teachers than researchers will be invited to teach in the special freshman program.” Meanwhile, faculty members in the main campus will focus more on teaching major and graduate students, and immerse themselves in research activities.
Should the UC be implemented, it will start in school year 2004-2005.

“This is at the proposal stage so nobody should be shocked by ideas unlimited. Some of them are not implementable but the idea behind it is the quest for excellence and the quest to become a world-class university and to make this campus a center for research,” Brother Andrew reiterated.

BNSCWRC awards 10 creative writing fellowships

The Bienvenido N. Santos Creative Writing and Research Center (BNSCWRC) awards ten fellowships to the joint University of St. La Salle (USLS)-DLSU Creative Writing Workshop in the Visayas. The activity will be held at Balay Kalinungan of the USLS in Bacolod City on May 9-13.

The ten workshop fellows are: from Bacolod, Jean Lee Manayon, Nicole Concha, Hazel Atilano, Jay Malaga, and Jonathan Davila; from Tacloban, Kristine Catan; from the National Capital Region, Carlomar Daoana, Isidoro Cruz, Glenn Maboloc, and Rei Alba. Rani Teresa Alisan is an alternate fellow.

Dr. Cirilo Bautista will head the workshop panel of fictionists and poets. Composed of faculty from DLSU-M and USLS, members of the panel are Dr. Elsie Coscolluela, Dr. Marjorie Evasco, Regina Groyon, and Vince Groyon III.

A special feature of the workshop is the interface with the Kritika 2002 workshop, headed by Dr. Isagani Cruz, and the Negros Summer Art Workshops, led by Peque Gallaga. The panelists and fellows will also visit the cities of Silay and Victorias.

The creative writing workshop envisions to encourage creative writing in the regions and provide a forum for a healthy dialogue on the craft between aspiring young writers and pu-blished writers and literature teachers.