By Prof. Tom Talledo
Last of three parts
THIRD PART | THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PEOPLE
When I finally savored the kernel of General Education of the University, I no longer take the Program simply as a bundle of courses with number of hours to spend inside the classroom nor number of units for students to earn to graduate.
For me it was and still is a horn of plenty overflowing with potentials and promises to enliven the life of the mind and to stir up valuable deeds. Those urgent affairs of the world outside are brought inside the classroom as examples and those disputed opinions held inside are verified in the real-life conditions.
That UP as the National University must put up with the meager allocation from the national government was confirmed when in years past Miag-ao Campus experienced water crisis yet without long-term solution until today.
The blabber about climate change is so loud in official agenda, yet buildings in the campus are still without rain-water catchments facilities. This seems to be not only a case of insufficient public funding but of poor strategic thinking.
If the link the between the expectation to produce knowledge for the nation and the practical nitty-gritty requisites to meet such expectation is missing, then critical thinking skills from General Education is indeed wanting.
Ah, UP may be weighed by its detractors then or now and found the institution wanting. As a retiring servant of the University, however, I am not bothered at all only if UP is truly the University of the People.
U.P. is not the University of its Presidents, not of its Vice-Presidents, not of its Chancellors, not of its Vice-Chancellors, not of its College Deans. Pomposity makes no University. Like hungry ghosts these functionaries come and go while the University does not really relish arrivals nor departures.
What stays are those ideals founded on common commitment to intellectual honesty, readiness to sacrifice the self, and Wagas Na Pag-ibig Sa Tinubuang Lupa. Ang mga matatag na Iskolar ng Bayan are also not bothered in my view where ever they found themselves: they remain steadfast and true inside warm familial homes, in corporate boardroom, in foreign shores, in the barricade or in the guerilla front because the Alma Mater nurtured them bilang magigiting na mga Anak ng Bayan.
In closing, allow me now to confess my undying love of the University, the University that nourished my ideals — the University of the People.
This article is Prof. Talledo’s GE Lecture-Paper which he read on December 6, 2023 before his retirement
