Ignatius

Revin Xavier L. Ignacio

“No Building Yet”

I’ve often wondered what it’s like sharing the same faculty, working closely with members of the college, attending classes without difficulties, and having an organized facility for students and teachers— a building which unfortunately, we do not have.

As the first semester of this academic year comes to a close, I find it challenging to envision how the instructors of the College of Arts and Humanities (CAH) survived because it is apparent that CAH can be regarded as NPA, or No Permanent Address, as none of the three departments share a building, especially in light of the requirement that higher education institutions conduct their in-person classes in the middle of the semester. The changes in teaching mode from online to in-person classes have aroused several challenges and adjustments.

One is the lack of classrooms for students. The three (3) departments share few available classrooms from other colleges, and each faculty member must schedule and utilize the rooms every hour of every day.

Another is the relocation of the faculty office to another building in the middle of a semester. The English and Filipino department’s faculty members were relocated outside their customary faculty building to a farfunction hall with all their tables, chairs, filing cabinets, and other equipment. The former faculty space was turned into a teaching ground for face-to-face classes, and with this, we had to endure a lengthy commute between buildings to attend our classes.

The last significant issue is the absence of a facility for performing arts and more extensive presentation as a requirement for their course, which was embedded in the curriculum.

As I reflect on these challenges, I’m still in awe of how resourceful all the departments were despite everything. This struggle was surpassed through strict schedules that were closely adhered to and considered. Each faculty member had to communicate the precise time and hour they would meet with their students in person to maximize learning.

A few of our instructors have had their students perform theatrical plays, dances, and art sessions in Shimamura Park to mimic a stage fit for the performance. Also, courses with multiple students had their instructors consult various degree deans and faculty to ask permission to use available rooms in their buildings.

The faculty of the College of Arts and Humanities (CAH) has demonstrated its zeal and dedication to provide students with an excellent education and displayed strength, adaptability, and resourcefulness.

Although we surmounted these impediments, CAH can exceed more expectations and boost excellence with a building to its name.

The dream of the college facility with its classrooms, faculty room, laboratories, and theater will never die. But still, CAH will continue to give topnotch university service with or without that building…yet.

It takes ten thousand footsteps to know my university campus in La Trinidad valley. Its hundredyear-old memory of farmers, teachers, scientists, builders, and many more remains to be the inspiration our youth today.

Nostalgia

Richard Giye

Campus Memory

The land bears the heavy toils while the river meanders the borders to sustain the gardens, the flowers, the trees all life forms there at my campus. The wide roofs like mountains in the backdrop, the cornerstones of the buildings underlie thousands of bedrocks hauled by the students from the river. Yet beginning now the landscape begins to alter as numerous structures have been built. The surroundings of the school are tightening up and my campus begins to become smaller and smaller in view.

At the very heart of where it began, the few students who first toil the land in 1916 wouldn’t imagine this present developemt. More than 13,000 enrolled students and thousands more of alumni who already have served the province and abroad.

At the very same campuscut across the heart of valley bore memory of the first builders of the campus. Look around the campus, their names inscribed at the columns of the gates.

From the meandering Balili River, the rocks hauled by the first students still hold the walls of the buildings including the canopy poles where the abundant kayabang filled with the first harvest sits. The recent earthquake didn’t break them.

I should not forget also the children that run in the ground, swing in the branches of the trees, and shout with glee in the lazy afternoon after their classes. Yet, their confinement to small spaces begin as many buildings will be put up sorrounding the campus. A true educator should remember his childhood too, the space he needed to be creative, explorative and commune with the nature. We should maintain and open up green spaces for us all to thrive.

Further, children shouldn’t be brought-up eating fast-food, as we food stalls mushrooming in the campus. From one hub to another students surrounded by the indifference of the crowd and dulled by popular gadgets and commodities sold around wouldn’t make our campus safe for everone.

I don’t want to disremember my campus where like in the cities, college students dine in cozy coffee shops inside their school, instead I want to sit in the ground under the shade of a tree. Trees should lined-up way to my next class and not stalls and stalls of merchandise, my school is a safe ground where I could learn not where I could do business.

The space and the air should where the students’ learnings and creativity be inspired. Their vision should be wide and far-reaching and not hindered by another building blinding their future. The wide panorama at the heart of the valley, the hundred milestones, the hundred acre of vast knowledge should guide them once they leave the campus.

Help us recall the story of our school, the beginning story, the hallmark of its classrooms, the first students, the first writers, first farmers, and scientists. The ground where our campus stood remains to be toiled for the purpose of the education of the next generation. The land should be tilled, the gardens should continue to nourish us with real food from the ground.

And if all these grand plans will fail and turn into dust - the legacy of the farmers and the children of the farmers should be rewarded only by the enduring power of memory.