Education with a Heart: Treasuring the PWU Legacy and Sustaining Spirituality and Quality in Building a Global Institution

THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
General Assembly SY 2008-2009 • Thursday, June 5, 2008

Greetings
It is indeed a great joy for me to welcome all of you. I express to all my warmest appreciation for your presence here today. We start anew this school year 2008-2009, the eve of our 90th anniversary, SY 2009-2010. We humbly thank our Lord and our Blessed Mother that despite our past years’ financial crises, today we stand together, united in spirit, in the building of our faith community, and more committed to the PWU’s survival and progress towards its centenary. This opening is doubly significant because this school year 2008-2009 lays the ground for the anniversary preparations for celebrating our 90th year in educational service to God, country and home. We continue to pray that our beloved PWU Chair Tita Helen, who will be celebrating her 94th birthday this coming June 27, shall be equally blessed to be with us to celebrate this milestone event when she turns 95 next year.

Introduction

There is a challenge for all of us today as we heed the call to service and holiness: how to grow daily in our spirituality. This remains the bigger challenge confronting the PWU community. So the questions we pose to ourselves: are we starting fresh, with new hopes and better ideas to new beginnings for a brighter university’s future?

Sometimes we have lots of old educational ideas but can we begin to view these old ideas in a different institutional context, to create different educational outcomes? Can we also have our new ideas on education for sustainable development be perceived within the same MSCEd context, this time creating a better PWU brand of education?

This is what we are exploring to do in this University Assembly: I am sharing a conceptual framework based on Education with a Heart. I will try to concretize how this thrust may embrace our past institutional directions as well as serve as the motivational stimulus in our preparations for our 90th anniversary. So I intend to do the following:

First, we need to reiterate our vision-mission as understood today. Next we need to reiterate the educational elements in building our faith community which have served as our cornerstone in bringing about different educational outcomes. Lastly, we need to refocus our ordinary life of service and teaching, the task of making a difference in our educational outcomes as we prepare for our 90th anniversary. This would involve the educational features for sustaining quality and incorporating the new directions in our offerings of academic programs for building the university into a global institution.

I. REITERATION OF OUR VISION/MISSION

1. Core values from our Founding Mothers: From useful womanhood to responsible citizenship
   I have declared from the time of my installation as president, that the thrust of my presidency is anchored on the vision of its founders: Instilling the four-fold core values for character formation, family solidarity, leadership and civic consciousness, service to God, country and home. This remains as the foundation upon which PWU must gear up its entire educational program to respond to global needs, in keeping with its visionary role in the 21st century. We, therefore, reaffirm the PWU’s leadership in women’s education, taking its perspective of gender education, taking the lead and proactive role towards gender equity.

2. Excellence in women’s education: the PWU Heritage and our Legacy
   Our founding mothers prepared Filipina women for useful women’s roles in the new republic of the 20th century. Women’s education (and gender-fair education) has been our distinctive feature since the founding of this University in 1919. We focus on this aspect of our mission because PWU needs to be continually relevant, just as we broke fresh ground almost 90 years ago in preparing Filipinas for useful womanhood and responsible citizenship.  
     
   In 2006, we clarified the PWU mission to reiterate and focus strongly on leadership in women’s education to articulate this enduring commitment to prepare women through holistic education which treasures cultural heritage, and is imbued with values of personal integrity, family solidarity, community participation, and leadership in the profession.  
     
   The PWU is a member of Women’s Education Worldwide (WEW), a new international organization of women’s universities and colleges. We have been asked to participate in a survey, where they ask how our University has contributed to nation building. I have also been invited to lead a panel at an international symposium on “Women’s Universities in the 21st Century”; this is scheduled for mid-July in Japan. To be asked to participate in such international fora to share PWU’s HERSTORY and our many accomplishments is indeed increasingly affirming that we are being recognized internationally.

What is therefore, the “homework” of the different academic departments as you prepare for the 90th anniversary? This school year 2008-2009 is to document HERSTORIES celebrating the life’s work and contributions of our many alumnae trailblazers. What achievements have your respective departments contributed in the different areas of significance at the national, regional, and local milieu as well? You need to prepare your own “legacy” during this year.

As your president, we take pride that the PWU is at the forefront of many regional and international undertakings, for these certainly respond to the mission of leadership in women’s education. Hopefully we will be able to continue to further strengthen our role internationally through the IAUP (International Association of University Presidents) of which I am an Executive Committee member. As I have reported previously, I have successfully proposed the establishment of the IAUP Committee on Women’s Education which, when it gains ground, will formally address the concerns of women’s education and its role in the world today. This coming November, NCWP founded by then PWU President Francisca Tirona Benitez (better known as “Mama B” who celebrated her birthday yesterday, June 4th, also proclaimed as NCWP Day) will host the ACWO 13th regional conference on WOMENOMICS, with 10 ASEAN member nations, with their national women organizations attending.

II. SUSTAINING PWU’S COMMITMENT OF BUILDING A FAITH COMMUNITY 

Since my installation, I have advocated a shift in paradigm: Spiritual Renewal in Education. Spirituality in education has remained the thrust of my presidency. Promoting Christian education within the context of non-sectarian institutions: this means strong Catholic doctrinal education among Catholics, together with strong interfaith ecumenism among those of other faiths.

I have instructed the Chancellor, AVP Dayon, AVP Mely Gaerlan and the cluster of spirituality to administer a diagnostic survey among our students to assess the level of spiritual awareness and religious instruction: how Christian education is understood within the context of a non-sectarian institution. We need to show proof that our best practices have achieved changes in awareness that work ethics permeate the everyday subject matter lessons. As you very well realize, it is my enduring advocacy and firm conviction that students need to recognize that religion as a separate subject matter is vital for our students’ spiritual growth.

A humane education is incomplete without religion. An integral formation of the students has to have a soul, which we need to nourish spiritually through our program of action: Deepening Spirituality, Living our Faith Community, articulated by Msgr. Ding Coronel.
  
Over the past four years, this concept of building a faith community was rather vague and abstract. Indeed, we have gone a long way from the time this thrust was initially articulated. Today, faced with the present realities, we are more cognizant of what it means to build a faith community. This has been made clearer through articulations of our former University Chaplain, now rector of San Carlos Seminary, who has elaborated on the elements of building the PWU’s faith community.
  
We acknowledge with thanks and deep appreciation that during Msgr. Ding’s one-year-and-a-half service to the University, this “faith community as a believing, celebrating, loving and praying community” was made real and operational. We hope that the “mustard seeds” of change that were planted in us take root in “fertile ground”, nurturing these seeds so they might flourish to maturity and bear much fruit. I recommend very strongly that you get a copy of these two monographs to serve as the spiritual base for your professional subjects and course offerings.
  
We are blessed that His Eminence Cardinal Rosales has approved the appointment of Msgr. Ding to continue serving as University Spiritual Adviser for evangelization work. Based on the successful pastoral work done in the University, the challenge for the PWU—as it prepares itself for the 90th anniversary—is to emerge as the non-sectarian institution heavily oriented with spiritual formation and religious instructions. We envision becoming a “model” for non-sectarian institutions to inculcate Christian education within a non-sectarian perspective.
  
A most unique and unprecedented pioneering effort is the formal signing of the MOU between PWU and San Carlos Seminary for educational collaboration: a new partnership to explore a national multi-sectoral program of evangelization. We are also blessed that our new university chaplain, Fr. Fabros, has deep interests in migrant workers, another advocacy which will concretize how PWU can directly assist the children of overseas workers.

• Building a faith community is Call to Holiness. This aims to reach that kind of spirituality that empowers our human potentials to be the best we can become. To acquire the necessary virtues to make our ordinary life of service an opportunity for increasing personal sanctification. That teaching at PWU is not just a job or a source of employment. It is a venue for the self-discovery of opportunities for holiness in the ordinary life of service, teaching and community outreach.

  My constant appeal to grow in spirituality is this: spend quality time with the Lord, schedule your time for prayer and silence; devote time for spiritual reading; for Catholics, try to hear daily Masss; for the non-Catholics, provide time for your own spiritual growth.

• Deepening spirituality: from personal success to achieving significance is living our Faith Community. Discovery of how learning by doing can be the means for self-improvement and career enhancement: That we learn to value work and teaching by offering these activities as ways of praying. How can we begin to acknowledge that our duties, responsibilities and daily tasks may serve as enriching source of sanctification; it can even serve as occasions for meeting our Lord through each person we encounter.

• Faith community is a believing, celebrating, loving and praying community. Some excerpts from Msgr. Ding’s two monographs: “Spirituality in the Work Place” and “Deepening Spirituality and Living our Faith Community”. By taking to heart these readings, we can highlight the brand of PWU education that we are proud to proclaim, as we begin the year-long preparations for our 90th anniversary.

“The PWU faith community is a community of the people of the PWU deepening their faith in God. They seek to deepen their spirituality in the conviction that this is vital to value formation of the Filipino citizenry and the strengthening of the Filipino family. Deepening spirituality for transformative leadership is the vision of PWU brand of education. The best of the students surfaces as a result of interior spirituality.”
  
“In other words, the faith community is a believing, celebrating, loving and praying community…. The PWU assumes these marks. As a believing community, it is based on convictions and principles of justice and peace. As a celebrating community, it rejoices in the triumphs of the past, the blessings of the present, the hopes of a better future. As a loving community, it reaches out in general to the poor and disadvantaged in society. As a praying community, it relies on the providence of the Almighty. Thus, the PWU faith community takes into heart the vision statement of the Archdiocese of Manila, in the promotion of the human development of the poor and religious instructions in schools and campuses.”
  
“Transformative leadership: pastoral, purpose-driven, catalyst for renewal. Leadership is vital in community-building. Transformative leadership does not stagnate with the status quo. Creativity, initiative, and enterprise mark this agent for updating, transformation, renewal and change.”
  
“Staffing: replacement and selection, with justice in wisdom. There is the reality of the human element. Any community has an internal standard of conduct and behavior. Leadership with counsel has to face the decision of erring membership. To be true to expectations of a noble living, that is spirituality above materialism, the community confronts noncompliance. Any ruling would be in accord with fairness, due consideration, with each particular case.”
  
“Contributions of Women. The womanly gift of complementing the masculine effort and the maternal touch undoubtedly transform the community of religiosity into a caring group, more sensitive to the needs of those who long for greater attention and love. The feminine perspective of life is a treasure which enriches and supplements the work of deepening religiosity.” 

A. Review of Themes in Years Past

During our University Foundation Week in February 2008, we began our 89th year filled with new vision, enhanced mission and renewed commitments. My advocacy to deepen our spirituality towards transformative leadership, which we adopted for our theme last year, remains part of our over-all University ethos. We strive to be more determined and purpose-driven towards building a culture of quality, internalizing this and ensuring this is applied in our daily work. Let’s continue to make QUALITY our top priority as we grow closer as a Faith Community, forging onward to being an Autonomous University.

Quality Education is one of our University’s collective goals, whereby we learn to value excellence in teaching, research and academic support, giving everything our very best so we can offer our every action as a prayer of gratitude for the goodness and beneficence and for the greater glory of God. I am projecting on screen the list of our previous school year themes:

• 86th - Global Competencies through Spiritual Renewal and Transformation

• 87th - Global Competencies through Spirituality and Transformative Leadership

• 88th - Deepening Spirituality and Achieving a Culture of Quality for Transformative Leadership

I only wish to show this to the PWU community to further emphasize that indeed we are progressing. Last year’s call was to deepen spirituality. We hope that, in the course of the year we have grown closer to God and with our co-workers and other fellows. Have we done our best, given more than what is expected? Have we extended ourselves and increased our awareness, knowledge and skills, improved our attitudes and sense of service, for the betterment of the University? Have we strived for quality performance and excellence in our line of work?

A. Review of Themes in Years Past

In all of these endeavors and action undertakings, over the past years, in formulating themes to refocus institutional directions, the major question that I had asked myself, as I was preparing for this general assembly, is: How do we ensure that our call to holiness, our building a faith community, deepening our spirituality, and promoting a culture of quality would really deepen our growth in spirituality as living our faith community in our everyday life of service?

In other words, we do not separate work from our own ethical, moral standards and behavior. Work, through the fulfillment of duties and responsibilities, should be a journey to learn to grow in spirituality, to discover opportunities for holiness in an ordinary life of scholarship and commitment for service.

Stressing on this “education with a heart” as the core substance of PWU’s brand of education is not new. This was already mentioned in my previous general assembly meetings and in the monograph “Spirituality and transformative leadership”. What is new is to focus on this concept as the motivating stimulus that can make the big difference in achieving a culture of quality in the PWU brand of education and building a global institution for the future.

Sharing the Conceptual Framework: Formative Science of Spirituality The Science of Formation Touches the Heart 

Educating the heart—the role of the “heart” in spiritual formation and academic transformation. The heart is the center of feeling, striving enlightened by the human spirit and by the Holy Spirit. When the heart is transformed, it influences the total personality. In this process, there are two basic motivational sources that meet the heart: spiritual and vital.

The heart in spirituality is, therefore, an experience of God but also an existential attitude, an openness to God’s living presence in the individual and the world around oneself… one’s life in its totality. Spiritual formation is oriented to a renewal of the heart. From the motivational aspect, we see the heart as the life-center of the spiritual life. There is the striving, feeling center of the human person. Any motivation, whether vital or spiritual, will move the individual only when it reaches the heart. Thus, we need to be conscious of my “sense-ability and response-ability” (which comprise the “heart” in the various aspects of life).

What is my “heart saying”? How is my current self affecting my sense-ability and my response-ability? In what way am I furthering my formation and in what way is it being hindered by my vital needs and drives, by cultural pulsations and expectations? How attentive am I to my aspirations and expectations? How attentive am I to my aspirations and pneumatic inspirations? What is the succession of situations that I find myself in? What are the new demands, that things, people, and events are making on me? In what ways can I better respond to them?

Once we start asking these intimate questions during our prayer time, this is a living experience in Christ. This experience embraces with the heart what Christ has experienced (the world and humankind). So we do have a powerhouse of spiritual energy, required for the transformation of human hearts, in our very own interior lives as expressions of encountering our Lord’s presence in our souls. Integration cannot be achieved on the ego level. Rational objective explanations cannot “touch” subjective experiences, much less integrate them. In the spiritual life, the ego is seen to be at the service of value directives. Only in the heart can the vital impulses gradually change into the service of the spirits. We have to see not only our ego strengths but also our weaknesses in order to open ourselves to a greater dependence on the Lord. The primary attitude in spiritual life is not control but submission to the will of God.

There is indeed a formative science to this spirituality that we are trying to strengthen as an academic community. But we have to ask ourselves: What moves my heart? What motivates me to do my work? It is in this mode that we challenge ourselves, acting on our experience of growing together both spiritually and as an institution. The HEART has a role in Education. The heart in spirituality should develop in us the attitude of being open to God’s living presence in each person and the world around him.

The past school year themes have been towards our own inner transformation as educators. Through deepened spirituality we had hoped that we increase our EMOTIONAL QUOTIENT—through dynamic spiritual renewal.

Why does EQ and SQ matter now more than IQ? IQ and EQ, as I am sure most of you are aware of, are not opposing competencies. But being in an institution of higher learning I am sure many of us already have high IQ… but how do we develop the EQ qualities like empathy, nurturing, caring, loving, reaching out to others, resilience, inner courage, and a sense of humor (most important!).

PWU Education is Education with a Heart. In our working together as a Vibrant Faith Community, we emphasize here today that our Brand of Education and its delivery is not just a Commitment of the Mind, but also an Affair of the Heart (see Diagram A & B). We need to strengthen this aspect of our selves, our Heart for our work (see Diagram C)—whereby we develop in ourselves the human (developed) and divine (a gift) sides.

We need to increase this capacity to look inward because, truth to tell, a rich spiritual and emotional life is what we should really be after. And this is why we place such importance in deepening our individual spirituality as members of a Faith Community. Faith without love is not enough –rather it is not faith but a counterfeit faith. Faith is a living, busy, active, mighty thing. Clearly, a vibrant faith is manifest in actions designed to serve God and others. An integral faith makes itself public in acts of decision, obedience and service. Faith, as an affair of the heart and a commitment of the mind that result in service and moral behavior, is a very close personal relationship with God.

PWU education is Education with a Heart. We need to remind ourselves of our vocation as educators. Emerging spirituality is discovering our potentials and the meaning of our life. Msgr. Coronel has imparted many messages to us; one of them goes like this: “Any workplace spirituality needs to uphold values, creativity, inclusion of all, principles and vocation. Vocation is contrasted with mere professionalism and is seen in the context of God’s calling to serve and help others.” Have we internalized this message? These basic ingredients for workplace spirituality therefore make the workplace sacrosanct.

We need to be constantly reflecting and renewing our personal commitment to our work. I have stated in my previous memos that those who do not have this personal commitment can just ship out—and so they did. But I am sure many of us do feel we are engaged in more than just work—we have committed ourselves, not just our time and our energy, but the very best of our selves.

I acknowledge with deep appreciation the dedication all of us have given in ensuring the success of the two IQuAME visits to the PWU. It is this dedication that we have mustered together that I wish to emphasize is MOST IMPORTANT in our life as a University. In our work, we really need to put not just our minds, but our HEARTS as well.

We have sought to become an Autonomous University not only for the status and prestige. More importantly, being autonomous becomes a tool and a strategy for the PWU to be able to give more and better services, to achieve a greater dimension of quality, to reach out beyond local campuses and even beyond the Philippines—as a global institution of higher learning.

With the final word on our successful autonomous status imminent, we ask ourselves: What are the ways we could enhance and improve our work and our service to our students? We always mention that we need better facilities and equipment: but more than physical upgrading, we should also ask ourselves too: What is it that needs upgrading in myself? Our spiritual formation is a conscious action, a shifting of paradigms within our minds and hearts. This requires a renewal of the heart.

III. Our Institutional Purpose towards our 90th year, towards our

Centennial

This school year, our 89th Year Theme is “Treasuring the PWU Legacy & Sustaining Quality in Building a Global Institution”.
  
By way of introducing our theme to the Community, let me break it down into three parts

A. Treasuring the PWU Legacy

1. The PWU Brand of Education, Core Values

Many students and graduates who have passed the halls of this University have become distinguished alumni, and I am sure you all agree that through them, the PWU has made a mark on the local, national and international scene. We take rightful pride in our heritage: of being the first university for women in Asia founded by Asians; the first in the field of Early Child Development; the first to institute many career courses especially in the fields of fine arts and music, health, home economics and hotel and restaurant management.

It is essential that we know, remember, and take pride in Alma Mater and our unique Brand of Education. It is essential for us to internalize the Core Values ourselves, because these values nourish us into giving our best in our own work, driving us to innovate and make even bolder steps towards achieving greater success. From this appreciation of our PWU educational legacy stems forth our passion towards academic excellence as we compete in the global market in a borderless world.

Let us then revisit our core values (S-P-C)

• Spirituality and Ethical Professional

• Professional Competencies for Global Citizenship

• Cultural Heritage & Leadership in Women’s Education

The core values are guiding principles of PWU’s Brand of Education towards Transformative Leadership. How then do we translate these core values into our curriculum, syllabi and daily operations?

Our MSCE for Sustainable Development enables them thus, and it is our task, therefore, to share these Core Values to instill in them the sense and responsiveness as righteous citizens of the world. But we need to find in ourselves this deepened spirituality that empowers and transforms. We really need to find, appreciate and nurture the roots of this spirituality—and BECOME the best version of ourselves before we can transform others.

With this challenge we experience even better motivation to love our everyday work of teaching and learning, working on curriculum revisions and innovations, developing online instructional and promotional materials. We have to constantly improve ourselves, do things better AND WITH QUALITY, always taking the lead, never just following. Let us personify EDUCATION: CHANGE FOR THE BETTER, as our beloved Chair Dr Helena Z Benitez constantly emphasizes.

B. Sustaining Quality, cultivating a learning environment that is caring,
    nurturing, loving and empowering

1. Our Best Practices

So what have we been doing this past year? What are we doing? What then are our priorities considering our challenges today?

I attach as annex a Summary of Achievements for the SY 2007-2008, based on the Seven (7) Dimensions of Quality that we had instituted as our basis for measuring performance. As a reiteration, let me share again our 7Ds.

1. Quality as fitness for/of purpose – ability to ensure fitness to achieve the objectives set; ability to translate vision, mission and core values into plans, targets, decision and analyses; ability to translate the fundamental reason for existence of an organization

2. Quality as compliance – ability to comply with accreditation, program level and university- or institution-wide, and other certifications

3. Quality as customer satisfaction – ability to satisfy customers; ability to determine requirements, needs, expectations, and preferences of customers and markets to ensure the continuing relevance of products and services and to develop new business opportunities

4. Quality as value for money – ability to equate and render services as perceived worth of the tuition and fees given, or the benefits relative to cost

5. Quality as transformation – ability to reach greater objectives or to change

6. Quality as enhancement – ability to continuously improve products and services fostering a culture to find “better if not the best” way of doing things

7. Quality as excellence – ability to render an integrated approach resulting in delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, thereby contributing to sustainability (e.g., local and international recognition)

As indicated in these slides, and in the recent years—plus our attainment of autonomous status…. Our successful past augurs our hopeful future, which can become realizable through our personal commitments and concerted efforts. Let us work out today what we want to materialize tomorrow.

We have successfully weathered the worst of our financial crises (we hope). When I assumed the presidency in 2003, there was an indebtedness of P700 M. With complete trust in Our Lord and our cooperative efforts, we have reduced the loan to a manageable amount of P250 M, while doubling salary compensation, improved physical facilities and many other developments to meet accreditation standards and IQuAME requirements. We are only waiting to be granted autonomous status come school year 2008-2009.

There indeed must be a greater design to all of this. These challenges have made us collectively reflect as well as galvanized us into acting and moving to a higher plane of broader educational possibilities.

Our approach from last year was to INNOVATE – COLLABORATE – TRANSFORM. As a review, let me share again some key points. 

1. Innovation – the capacity to preserve the best of the old and realign the rest to take advantage of future opportunity.

2. Collaborate - The core premise of the future is collaboration. The orientation shifts (from competition) to one of sharing and leveraging one another for mutual success. The common language will emerge as well as the shared vision—one that might be realized in our lifetime.

3. Transformation - of self, of the institution; what are the desired characteristics of a purpose-driven institution that is gearing to go global?

FIVE DIMENSIONS OF UNIVERSITY’S GROWTH Universities grow warmer through fellowship
Universities grow deeper through discipleship
Universities grow stronger through worship
Universities grow broader through ministry
Universities grow larger through evangelism

In addition to the above, I wish to report that in the last SEAMEO, the following were stated as the increasing concerns of higher education

• Demand for higher access

• Demand for higher quality

• Declining government support

• Expansion of knowledge

• Demand for competitiveness, with entry of foreign-controlled education

2. The challenges we face vs. Thinking out of the box

Apart from the demand to be dynamic in educational approaches, we face the challenges of globalization and the resultant competition, fast developments in information communication technology, among many others. Let us constantly look beyond our students’ and society’s expectations. Let us now think out of the box.

As we approach our 90th year as an institution of higher learning, let us now live and leave our own PWU Legacy. Let us move together towards the sustainability of our educational mission as we leap into our 90th anniversary, which we mark as preparation for our Centennial.

With the same foresight as when our seven founders established our university, let us think ‘out of the box’ and break new ground. We must start to believe there are no obstacles to God’s grace, no obstacles to what we can do as a University. We are all called to spirituality, embracing it, nurturing it and letting it manifest in our work and the lives that we touch, especially our students, alumni and the communities we affect.

B. Transforming the PWU into a Global Institution

1. Academic thrust

 Institutional Quality produces Quantity!

To understand the issue of quality in education, it will be easier for us if we look at education as a system with all its interdependent components: inputs, process, output and feedback. Under the inputs we have students as raw inputs, and curriculum, learning materials, teachers, learning facilities and environment as instrumental inputs.

The second component, process, is where all inputs interact in the process of teaching-learning to reach educational goals and objectives. The third component, output, is the product of the interaction among the inputs, which can be seen from student’s improved performance in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. Feedback mechanism is another important component of the education system that will give us information on how the system succeeds or fails in achieving goals and objectives. Quality in education cannot be seen from the outputs or the student learning achievements only, but also from other components. This is the reason why we have grouped ourselves into clusters—the connectivity of these components to clustering as our strategy complementing vertical integration.

We cannot expect to have good quality education if the students are not in prime health, are over- or undernourished, often going to school with empty stomachs. The basic need for food and nutrition decreases student attention and motivation for learning. That is why we will have a new Nutrition Clinic, to go with a holistic wellness program.

Quality translates to quantity. With quality faculty and quality learning environment, enrollment will beef up. Quality is always a customer requirement, the same with price, services, etc.

I would like to emphasize the value of teachers as an important input. Teachers are essential players in promoting quality education. Professionally competent teachers are very important— well-trained, highly motivated, dedicated. What is important in improving the quality of education is not only having enough number of teachers, but enough number of good quality teachers who are motivated and dedicated to their jobs, that is, they love to teach and they love their students such that they see each student as a person whom they are preparing for life in the real world.

To ensure that a competent teaching force is maintained to deliver quality education, the government of Singapore has introduced programs that focus on talent management, leadership selection and review of teachers’ workload. I expect the HRD group to review and to recommend measures and initiatives to acknowledge the role teachers play, and raise the standing and morale of the profession through various incentives, be this promotions or awards.

1. Education for Sustainable Development/ Implementation through MSCED Sustainable Development is the new buzzword, with the UN declaring 2005-2014 as the UN Decade for Education for Sustainable Development. ESD is fundamentally about values, with respect at the center: respect for others, including those of present and future generations, for difference and diversity, for the environment, for the resources of the planet we inhabit.

The right to education imposes an obligation upon educators to ensure that all children and citizens have opportunities to meet their basic learning needs.

ESD mirrors the concern for education of high quality, demonstrating characteristics such as:

• interdisciplinary and holistic – learning for sustainable development embedded in the whole curriculum, not as a separate subject;

• values-driven: sharing the values and principles underpinning sustainable development;

• critical thinking and problem solving: leading to confidence in addressing the dilemmas and challenges of sustainable development;

• multi-method: word, art, drama, debate, experience… different pedagogies which model the processes;

• participatory and decision-making: learners participate in decisions on how they are to learn;

• locally relevant: addressing local as well as global issues, and using the languages which learners most commonly use.

Our Moral Socio-Civic Education (MSCE) can thus be enhanced to include sustainable development concerns in its curriculum, in order for our learners to become globally-sensitive and not just globally-competitive.

2. Internationalizing the curriculum/ Transforming the PWU into a Global Institution

3. Renewed Integral Evangelization

4. Revitalizing our linkages

5. Ladderizing the curriculum/ ETEEAP

6. Intensifying our marketing strategies

7. Continuous review and QA measures

• What is our standard (benchmarking)?

• What are our procedures and guidelines on quality assurance?

• Quality Assurance and Accreditation

2. Institutional plans for our 90th Foundation Anniversary

I build up to this last challenge… that we celebrate our 90th year as an institution con gusto. We celebrate that we have made it this far, this good; we celebrate that we are moving with even more energy towards our Centennial. We may not all be here when that time comes, but what is important is that we have left our own particular mark, our own legacy for future generations to appreciate.

How do we do this? I have mentioned this in my recent speeches, my call for the academic clusters to gather their collective achievements and collaborate on ways to document or exhibit these.

Conclusion

All of us here today have deep-hearted wishes of achieving individual and institutional success and significance in our own ways. I feel blessed to be of service as your University President; I feel inspired and determined that we will prevail as a purpose-driven institution and as a faith community, deepening our spirituality and living daily our faith commitments.

Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Begin reprogramming our minds today. Start believing that things are going to change for the better, not because we deserve it, but simply because God loves us that much. It is a spiritual principle that we move toward that which we see in our minds and hearts. If we can’t see it, it is not likely to come to pass in our lives.

As our former University Chaplain Msgr. Coronel has sowed in us the mustard seeds of change, so let us be the fertile ground that enables these seeds to take root, flourish to maturity, and bear much fruit. Just remember, God is very interested in what we see through our spiritual eyes.

Our bottom line is not just increasing or generating enrollment, but more importantly, ensuring and strengthening the “commitment” from all stakeholders. Let’s all work together in preparing to make a memorable 90th anniversary for all of us, and for the generations who will come after us.

While we wait for GOD to work FOR US, GOD IS WAITING TO WORK THROUGH US.

Thank you and GOOD DAY.

References

Amidon, Debra M. Innovation Superhighway: Harnessing Intellectual Capital for Collaborative Advantage. © 2002. Butterworth-Heinemann.

Calpotura, Virginia RSCJ, ed. Formative Spirituality: The Collected Writings of Venancio Calpotura, SJ. © 2007. Jesuit Communications Foundation, Inc. in cooperation with Calpotura Foundation.

Coronel, Msgr. Hernando Coronel. Spirituality in the Workplace. © 2007. The Philippine Women’s University Press.

Coronel, Msgr. Hernando Coronel. Deepening our Spirituality, Living our Faith Community. © 2007. The Philippine Women’s University Press.

Osteen, Joel. Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential. © 2005. Faithwords.

Reyes, Amelou Benitez. Spirituality and Transformative Leadership. © 2006. The Philippine Women’s University Press.

Strommen, Merton P. and Handel, Richard A. Passing on the Faith: A Radical New Model for Youth and Family Ministry. © 2004. Jesuit Communications Foundation, Inc. published in arrangement with St. Mary’s Press.

Warren, Rick. The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? © 2001. Zondervan.

Top | Previous