Investiture Speech
Dr. Grace Javier Alfonso, 3rd Chancellor of UPOU
Delivered on 9 June 2007, Cine Adarna, UP Film Institute, UP Diliman, Quezon City
Dr. Ma. Cristina Padolina the first chancellor of UP Open University, my mentor, and my dear friend, I truly appreciate those wonderful words of introduction and thought provoking message. My most sincere thank you.
I would like to thank the UP Board of Regents, Regent Ponciano Rivera, Regent Nelia Gonzales, Regent Lourdes Barcenas, Our UP President, Dr. Emerlinda Roman and University, Chancellor Sergio Cao, my Colleagues from College of Mass Communication and my Colleagues from the UP Open University all who have fully supported me in my work with the UP Open University and have now given me the opportunity to serve as UPOU Chancellor.
Continuing the work at the UP Open University with our dedicated vice chancellors, deans, faculty, REPS and admin staff is a most welcome challenge and honor for me. This means working closely with our system officials and colleagues from the different constituent Universities who are our faculty affiliates. I am very happy to see many of you this afternoon.
To our UP Diliman Chancellor Cao, UP Manila Chancellor Arcadio, UP Los Banos Chancellor Velasco, UP Visayas Chancellor Aguilar, UP Mindanao Chancellor Rivero, UP Baguio Chancellor Macansantos, Vice Chancellors, Deans of the different UP Constituent Universities, I am so glad that you are with us today. I am taking this opportunity to acknowledge your continuing support to the UP Open University. Congresswoman Riza Hontiveros Baraquel, Regent Oscar Alfonso for guiding us through the program. Former UP President Emil Javier, Former UP President Nemenzo, who are believers and movers of distance education in the Philippines. To the honorable members of the Diplomatic Corps, to our grantors, our partner institutions, friends from the Culture and the Arts community, members of the film community, members of the press, faculty, students, parents, relatives, friends, distinguished guests, my dearest family, sitting at the front row and most specially the graduating Class of 2007. To all of you - good afternoon.
I am privileged and honored that I am given a rare chance to speak before such a distinguished audience. And on top of that to address a graduating batch… indeed it is an honor which is given to only a few. But if you go home tonight remembering some of the things that I will have said then I can say that I am truly privileged.
This is an important occasion most especially for all of you who are graduating today. It is always an extremely happy occasion for your family for it can mean changing you and your family’s everyday lives forever. It may mean promotion in your work, an inspiration to take further studies, a change in your career paths or a moving ecstatic moment of self-fulfillment. But one thing sure is that your family is proud of you. Just like you, I’d like to believe my family is proud of me becoming the 3rd Chancellor of UP Open University. Aside from my husband and children, my sister, my brother I can see my mother- in- law my sisters- in- law and their husbands, my titas, titos, cousins nephews and nieces In fact, half of the people in the theater I think are my relatives.
My mother was a school teacher. Before the war she went to UP and when the war broke out she was not able to go back to UP. That was probably why she chartered her children’s academic life to be graduates of UP. My sister is a Doctor of Psychology teaching in our university married to the Dean of the College of Law. My brother took Engineering and MBA in UP, married to a doctor who likewise graduated and taught in the UP College of Medicine. My two sons are both graduates of UP. And my husband teaches MBA and chairs a department but in some other school. My father was likewise a teacher at the Philippine Military Academy when he was still a young military officer. But as you can see, I am as proud of my family as I’m sure they are of me. They are all believers in education. We, who are in this hall, are all believers in education… that is why we are gathered here today.
I have mentioned family many times because it is part of the vision of touching the lives of Filipinos by the University of the Philippines through its cyber campus the UP Open University.
To envision is to imagine. Imagination has created nations and cultures. To imagine is to construct the form of our vision in our minds and to crystallize in our minds the blueprint with the corresponding methodologies to make things happen. Just as you have imagined that one day you will march with your “sablay” and be part of the 2007 class of UP Open University. At that time, it may have been difficult to imagine since you had too much work at the office, too much chores at home, cannot even leave your homes for school. But you imagined and constructed your blueprint for survival which you followed and now you’re here and, yes, it all started with a vision.
Imaging, visualizing, and constructing the vision is really Imagining…and imagining excites us, makes our hearts beat faster and makes our minds fertile. To imagine that one day we have operationalized having one member of every Filipino family becoming a learner of the UPOU is the vision we want to concretize and what we want to achieve. Today, living in a country of many islands is no barrier to quality education and Filipinos living abroad can likewise access the same quality education. It is therefore not unrealistic to imagine having a critical mass of the population becoming learners of the University of the Philippines through UP Open University through its diverse formal degree programs and non-formal courses. Today we are witness to an emerging culture of distrust where violence becomes a justifiable means to alleviate societal pains. This concretized vision can help in building a nation where critical thinking becomes a way of life and where such thinking can help lessen national traumas and national hysterias just like the past elections. With a great number of Filipinos armed with education and not with guns, we can hopefully bring together the minds and the political will of those who can make this envisioned scenario happen.
With the digital communication culture in our midst, academics are now turning to hypertext, hypermedia and hyper-multimedia. Open and Distance Learning has become a major resource and a venue to explore alternative pedagogies, andragogies and methodologies for effective teaching and learning.
Our teachers and learners are redefining concepts like teaching, learning, knowledge creation, knowledge products, scholarly dialogue, connectivity, interactivity and socialization. Academic communities both nationally and internationally are exploring potential growth areas in research, instructions and extension with the use of appropriate technologies.
Allow me to reiterate what UP Open University stands for.
The vision for UP Open University runs parallel to that of the University of the Philippines System expressed in the following statements.
UPOU is for academic freedom. The Faculty and students are part of the community of scholars pursuing their chosen fields of study. Their individual freedoms are respected. They are given the space, the venue, and resources to pursue their studies and researches and be able to present their works to the academic community. UPOU is “a learner centered” university where students are fully supported with course materials, e-library resources, tutors and faculty for them to fulfill their academic presentations and requirements in their fields of study. The outcome of works by students and faculty can be shared without fear not only with the academic community but with other communities and our society in general for the benefit of our Filipino people.
UPOU is committed to academic excellence. UPOU Faculty and our Faculty affiliates as faculty-in-charge are committed to academic excellence. Exemplary and excellent course materials are produced by the best in the subject matter and field of study and finally supported by an outstanding battery of instructional designers, editors, readers, graphic artists and media specialists. Qualified and well trained tutors as facilitators of learning are also a requisite to an outstanding open and distance learning institution.
UPOU is responsive to the changing times. When there are possible use of eminent, available and established concepts, ideas, pedagogies, methodologies and technologies that are born out of these changing times, the academics of the UPOU study, research, experiment, develop, apply and again study, research and theorize on them. Studies, as media specialists, instructional designers, subject matter specialists, writers and readers are the academics’ way of life in UPOU.
UPOU is for the people and about people having wider access to quality education. The concept of equity, reaching those who otherwise will have no access to quality education, is of import. As part of the premier university it is our mandate to commit ourselves to the offering of continuing formal and non-formal programs in response to the need of the Filipino workforce. UPOU is for those who cannot leave their work or their home because of schedule or some disabilities. UPOU will provide them access to undergraduate and graduate education programs they require or desire. This contributes to our efforts of creating a more humane society.
UPOU is committed to contributing to the uplifting of the quality of tertiary education in the country. Most of our students and graduates are academics teaching in other educational institutions. The distance mode of delivery enables teachers in the tertiary level to take their courses and upgrade themselves as they continue their own teaching tasks. Immediate application of new knowledge in their fields of study, necessarily contribute to better tertiary education in the country.
UPOU has the important role of helping create the culture of excellence and equity in our academic community. Traditionally, it is thought that there is a seeming mismatch of the concepts of excellence and equity. Schools of higher learning have been described as elitist institutions exclusively for those who are already highly literate, learned and knowledgeable, not for those who want to become more literate, learned and knowledgeable. But this reputation may be born out of lack of slots or space in the traditional mode of face-to-face delivery of education because there are times when even the qualified are disenfranchised. Open and distance learning extends the space and creates wider access to quality education to those who are marginalized because they cannot afford to locate themselves near the university, or cannot afford in terms of time to leave their work place or some other reason like disability or simply cannot leave home because of taking care of children or they are stationed abroad. Certainly not because they are less qualified. The act of opening access is empowering the learner.
Concepts of Open Learning Philosophy and Distance Education create countless possibilities. As we open the gates we must then solidly construct the culture of excellence as a strict requisite for open and distance learning. UP Open University will have to see itself at the forefront of an academic environment with vast changes in technologies to be incorporated and designed and used for true scholarship and academic rigor. There will be no compromise in excellence, in scholarship, in teaching, in research and, more specifically, in the methods and systems that help in making people teach, learn, work and succeed in their chosen fields. The quality of courses stay the same, the quality of the modules stay the same… written by only the best scholars in the field of study, where the tutor facilitates with the same academic rigor and the faculty-in-charge maintains the same standard of excellence as in the residential mode. Excellence and equity certainly can go together; most especially during these exciting digital times when academic texts are carried by hypertext, hypermedia and hyper-multimedia. And so, let me say again, Open and Distance Learning necessarily becomes an option and a venue to explore alternative pedagogies, andragogies and methodologies for effective teaching and learning.
As we seek equity and excellence in our own academic environment, we seek the same for our communities, our nation and even beyond, reaching our fellow Filipinos abroad through open and distance learning. We see the potential of taking advantage of our edge in being the “textingest” nation in the world. We see Filipinos not averse to new technology and to exploring the internet access to the libraries of the world and to participating in creating of new knowledge in pursuit of equity and excellence as I always say with passionate advocacy.
To you UPOU graduates…it is not the end of your UPOU life you must continue the connectivity to our university.
This coming year is our centennial year which means we are celebrating our University’s 100 years of being the venue of the Iskolar ng Bayan. And that is you. Ikaw ay Iskolar ng Bayan. Dahil sa taxes na ibinabayad nating mga Pilipino, hindi kayo nangailangang magbayad ng 30 to 40 thousand pesos per semester or 40 thousand pesos per trimester for quality education.
You are very fortunate to graduate from our university with its long and rich tradition of pursuit for excellence and equity… As I am fortunate to serve as the third chancellor of the UP Open University, to the Board of Regents, President Roman and my colleagues in the University, I will, in turn, together with my colleagues at UPOU, do our best to help in making sure that open and distance learning does its part in assuring academic freedom and academic excellence, in widening the access to quality education, in strengthening the Filipino workforce and in the betterment of tertiary education in the country - All these to help construct a culture of Excellence and Equity in and through distance education for a more, just, democratic and humane society.
To the 2007 graduating class, my utmost admiration, because as UPOU graduates, it takes tremendous amount of self motivation and self discipline to go through your course work and your rigorous learning process.
UP Open University is the Center for Excellence in Distance Education and our University is the E-learning Competency Center of the Philippines, and as we are proud of our institution …we are proud of you - our graduating class. You are part of the story of our prestigious University. Now you have seen and felt the true value of imagination and imaging a vision. And you have attained this vision through continuing your education and the bettering of the lives of your family and that of the people in your community and your country. Let us therefore continue to promote the culture of life-long learning.
Sabihin ninyo sa inyong mga kamag-anak, kapitbahay at ka-trabaho na magpatuloy sa pag-aaral…at sa ganoong paraan, kayo’y nakatulong na sa pagtataguyod ng isang matatag na sambayanan. Mabuhay sa ating lahat.
