Best practices shared in ASL Congress 2012

The Office of the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs-Academic Administration led by Dr. Jose Genaro Yap-Aizon, Associate VPAA for Academic Administration, organized the first Academic Service Learning Congress 2012 held in the afternoon of August 29 at the OZ Audio-Visual Room. It was organized to provide a venue for professors who have implemented ASL in their classes and students who have participated in ASL activities to share their experience and insight to the new batch of students and classes enrolled in an ASL-integrated subject this semester.

Dr. Carl Mark Miniano, dean of the College of Business Administration, opened the congress with his remarks where he extolled the values and benefits of ASL, which allows students and faculty to learn while serving. “Students can become productive while still being students,” Dr. Miniano says of ASL, as it allows students to make tangible and change-inducing results out of the theories and lessons learned inside the classroom.

Eleven professors and classes presented their ASL activities at the congress via audio-visual presentations. First to present was Prof. Rheo Paguibitan from the Psychology Department, whose ASL class in Educational Psychology benefited the Asociacion de Damas de Filipinas orphanage. Prof. Paguibitan and her students shared lessons with the Asociacion’s administrators, staff, and wards and monitored the children’s learning progress. Next to present was Prof. Maria Veronica Joy Binuya, whose Managerial Accounting class enabled the women from a barangay in Pasay City to maintain solid bookkeeping of their small community business, which Prof. Binuya and her MBA students also helped put up. Prof. Binuya and her students conducted their ASL activity under their Credit Management class.

The next two presentations featured different Architecture classes but both benefitting the residents of Gulayan, Malabon. Arch. Sylvester Seño and his fifth-year Architecture students conducted community planning and development at Gulayan, involving the residents of the community in their activity in order to create a master plan that will best answer the community’s needs. The second class, conducted by Arch. Chris Pineda and third-year Architecture students, conducted site planning and landscape architecture to complement and enhance the master plan created by the previous class.

Closing the first set of presentations was the ASL class of Prof. Arman Cruz, chairperson of the Financial Management and Economics Department, who introduced business finance to small businesses run by residents of a barangay in Tondo, Manila.

The second part of presentations began with the ASL class in good governance and social responsibility by Prof. Julius Rae Estampador from the Marketing and Management Department, which taught local leaders of a chosen community the rudiments of organizing the local community to enable them to lead on their own and be more self-sustaining. This activity was a project done in coordination with Gawad Kalinga.

Next was the ASL class on facilities planning and design done by Engr. Christopher Tupaz and his BS Industrial Engineering (BSIE) students. They conducted their activity at Towerville Phase 5 in Bulacan, where they helped construct a waste disposal facility for the community and educated them into using the facility effectively and maintaining it.

Prof. Eden Alberto’s ASL class was on operations management, which she conducted with her MBA students. The beneficiary of their class were the residents of Sylvia Street behind the school’s campus, whom they helped put up their own rolling store and taught them the skills, theories, and techniques needed to make their store successful.

Safety management was the ASL class of Dr. Walter Joaquin from the Industrial Engineering Department and his BSIE students. Conducted in Pasay City in the same community as that of Prof. Binuya’s class, Dr. Joaquin and his students taught the residents the importance of a community that is alert and ready by teaching first aid techniques and other safety management operations. Dr. Joaquin and his class also donated a fire extinguisher unit to the community.