Slip of the Pen
ptaruc@theguidon.com
Given all the pride and honor that the university accords to its charity work, it’s quite ironic to note how often one would hear its students complaining about the work that they must do for the sake of being men and women for others.
In the three years that I have spent within the scope of the university’s required charity work through the Integrated Non-Academic Formation (INAF) program, it was quite a common occurrence for my peers and I to delve into deep discussion and question the very things that the university required us to do. Be it during our jeepney rides in NSTP or during our work breaks in JEEP, we never really understood the purpose of going through all the effort to help out people who we will most likely never meet again after graduating from college.
Given the heavy academic workload that is already demanded by the school, one cannot help but wonder how the university expects its students to do well in social work when, in the first place, they have their grades to worry about.
This is the dynamic of the Loyola Schools today. Ateneans put much more emphasis on their school work rather than on social work, even though the university constantly emphasizes the importance of social involvement. There seems to be a dissonance between what the university teaches us to be and what it requires to do. The Ateneo advertises how it pushes its students to be men and women for others, and yet it does not actually force them to be so.
Yes, we are required to undergo four years of INAF, but that is not enough. Perhaps the problem stems from the fact that INAF has not been properly incorporated into a student’s Quarterly Point Index (QPI). This could be a reason why they don’t place as much importance in social work as compared to studying for their tests or finishing their papers.
One can argue that currently, all that the INAF requires of us to finish the four-year program is the minimum. Isn’t that a mockery of St. Ignatius, an insincerity toward the university stance of social justice? Isn’t our stay in the Ateneo all about magis? We pass the INAF subjects on the mere condition that we don’t, say, exceed the number of allowable cuts. Yes, we get graded, but NSTP grades, for example, are not accounted for in the computation of one’s QPI.
In effect, the charity work that we perform leaves us with nothing more than a series of exposure trips. Yes, we are able to see the plight of the marginalized, but we are not able to build relationships with them. We will always have our gated communities and soft beds to go back to. No room is left for empathy. As a consequence, students will feel that they do not have a stake to play in the development of the community. The responsibility of nation-building becomes lost in the midst of one’s academic burdens.
Perhaps it’s time that the university take drastic steps, such as include INAF grades in the calculation of a student’s QPI. The current grading scheme is too one-sided. The university has to be consistent. The administration must realize that a student’s academics form but a part of a student’s college experience; there are other parts of it that are not given due recognition. After all, in the end, some things might prove more important than getting an A.
