THE COUNCIL of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA) announced the creation of seven new committees to assist student organizations in their development and management at its State of the Council Address (SOCA) held at the Science Education Complex Lecture Hall B on November 12.
The new committees are as follows: The Committee on Administrative Relations (CAR), the Committee on Community Building (CCB), the Committee on Partnership (COP), the Transition and Organization Change Committee (Torch), the Nation-building and Advocacy Committee (NBA), the Support & Formation Committee (SFC), and the Processes, Systems & Structure Committee (PTSC).
The CAR, PTSC, SFC and Torch focus on intra-organization development and growth, while the NBA, CCB and the COP focus on inter-organization cooperation and building relationships with groups in and outside of campus.
The seven committees are designed to address significant obstacles to organization growth and development.
According to COA Inter-Cultural Relations Cluster Secretary-Treasurer Ryan Symaco, “common obstacles faced by many organizations” include those involving bureaucratic issues, such as dealing with the Office of Student Activities and the Office of Administrative Services, member role realization, graduating officer transitions and more.
Furthermore, COA Sector Based Cluster Secretary-Treasurer Erin Feliciano said these obstacles were highlighted by several presidents of COA organizations as “gaps” preventing their organizations from reaching their ideal states of progress and output.
These seven committees are currently comprised of COA Central Board (CB) members, but are accepting student organization officers to join and contribute to each committee, regardless of their organization’s specific cluster in COA.
Aside from working with COA-affiliated organizations, these committees will work to support the “realization of the COA’s three key areas: Excellence, community and nation-building,” according to Feliciano.
“We (the COA Central Board) are working to help build a stage where the organizations will perform and excel,” said COA President Karlo Abadines in his opening remarks.
Abadines said that “[the COA Central Board] hopes that these additions will help move the council, and, as a result, move the organizations of the Ateneo forward.”
The SOCA, according to the event’s Facebook page, is a meeting organized by COA to look back at the achievements of the confederation over the past semester and to offer a preview of the events and changes to come in the near future.
Efforts
The 2014 SOCA was geared to “show where the [COA] is going, and where [COA] strives to push toward,” said Abadines.
He highlighted key initiatives accomplished during the first semester through the inter-organization cooperation that COA encourages.
These initiatives include the “#AteneansNeverForget” campaign for Martial Law era awareness spearheaded by the Analysis and Discourse, and the Media and Creative Arts Clusters of COA, the Ateneo Probe initiative on contextualizing national issues for students created by The Ateneo Assembly and the Ateneo Association of Communication Majors, and Operation Health organized by the Pre-Medical Society of the Ateneo in partnership with Health Sciences Society and Project LAAN.
Health Sciences Society is the home organization of Health Sciences majors while Project LAAN is a movement that seeks to improve the health of Filipinos through innovation.
“These organization-and-cluster-led initiatives show that orgs do not simply exist in a mere vacuum, and can achieve much more when cooperating with one another,” Abadines added.
Aside from their role as the official conduit between organizations and the Loyola Schools administration, COA also offers supplementary services to the organizations, such as the annual Recruitment Week and project subsidies, to help serve the development of each organization.
Updated: 3:11 PM, Nov. 14, 2014
