Towards the end of the school year, the university recognizes the achievements of outstanding individuals through the Loyola Schools (LS) Awards for Leadership and Service (LSALS) in an annual event known as Paghahandog. These awards are conferred to students who have demonstrated exemplary leadership and service in various disciplines. Prior to this year, these awards were reserved exclusively for seniors. Starting SY 2014-2015, they began to be awarded even to students from lower batches.

The LSALS are among the most prestigious distinctions the school can confer. The status bestowed upon an individual who receives one of these awards is roughly equivalent to attaining Latin honors or higher distinctions during graduation. Therefore, recognition by the LSALS is something every student should strive to achieve.

Unfortunately, many Ateneans—particularly those from lower year levels—are oblivious to the existence of these awards. Although many seniors eventually learn about these awards, they often do so at a time when they no longer have the chance to meet the necessary criteria. It has become all too common, then, to see students wanting to win these awards, only for them to realize that it is too late.

Consequently, it is worth looking into how these awards are marketed and what purpose they serve to the student body.

Leadership and service

LSALS is an umbrella term for a set of awards the school gives out during the Paghahandog event. These awards can be broken down into four specific categories: The LS Awards for Leadership and Service, the Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement for National Development (Ascend) Awards, the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA) Awards and the LS Awards for Sports.

According to the school’s official website, the LSALS category acknowledges the efforts of members of the Ateneo in the area of “positive leadership—that which is in the service of others, purposeful and empowering, engaging the community and nurturing hope.”

Prospective awardees for the LSALS are nominated through an official nomination form, which may be filled up only by a member of the LS community. It can either be downloaded from the school’s official website or obtained from the Office of the Associate Dean for Student Affairs (ADSA).

In it, the nominator is asked a series of questions pertaining to how and why the nominee should be given the award. After all the nomination forms have been submitted, the school conducts an initial screening to identify the most deserving potential awardees from the pool. The Office of the Vice President for the LS then releases a shortlist of finalists, among whom the eventual winner is selected.

The LSALS category consists of three awards: Most Outstanding Project, Most Outstanding Individual and Most Outstanding Student Group. “The broad [criterion] is in the title,” Chris Castillo, Director of the Office of Student Activities (OSA), says.

The Most Outstanding Project award is given to a “service-oriented project” that is able to effect “significant positive changes.” As such, it is awarded primarily to projects dedicated to serving the community. This award may be given to either an individual or a group.

On the other hand, the Most Outstanding Individual award is bestowed unto an individual who has “[actualized] a resolve to engage and positively contribute to the larger community within and beyond the Ateneo.” Like the Most Outstanding Project award, it recognizes the achievements of individuals who have demonstrated an active commitment to the Atenean value of cura personalis—those who epitomize the ideal of being men and women for others. Because this award is non-academic in nature, it is distinguished from the title of valedictorian conferred during graduation.

Finally, the Most Outstanding Student Group is conferred to any college student group that has exemplified excellence through projects that have contributed to the development of the community and has formed their members into leaders. Castillo clarifies that this award is not reserved exclusively for organizations, but may also be given to informal student groups or non-accredited organizations.

Another category of awards under the LSALS is the COA Awards. Dedicated to recognizing the achievements of organizations and their leaders, these awards are given to those who “have exemplified the Ignatian ideals of service and excellence” and “have exerted great effort in fostering collaboration and unity within the Ateneo community of organizations.” The COA Awards consist of four specific awards: Leader of the Year, Executive Board of the Year, Project of the Year and Organization of the Year.

As the name implies, these awards are reserved exclusively for accredited student organizations under COA. They are awarded by voting for nominees through the process of liking and commenting on official photos on Facebook.

Finally, the school recognizes students who have shown exemplary performance in their respective sports through The GUIDON-Moro Lorenzo Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year Awards and the Ambrosio Padilla Athlete of the Year Award. The Moro Lorenzo Award is conferred to student athletes who have excelled in their chosen sports. On the other hand, the Ambrosio Padilla Award is given to student athletes who have excelled in both their chosen sports and academics.

Ascend

Another category of awards under the LSALS is the Ascend Awards. What sets this category apart is that it is primarily academic in nature. The award emphasizes the need for students to not only be knowledgeable about their chosen fields, but to also apply this knowledge towards national development.

Like the LSALS, the winner is chosen through a nomination and screening process. And like the LSALS, the award now considers not only papers and projects by seniors, but also those by non-graduating students.

This year, the school recognized four winners for the Ascend Award. First is “Pangmumula nin Pising sa Goyoden Vegetable (and Pitaya) Gardening in Goyoden, Bolinao, Pangasinan” by development studies juniors Averill Amor, Niron Concepcion, Jeonoah Kali A. Fornoles and European Studies senior Augusto Campos III. Second is “A Quasi-experimental Study on the Effectiveness of an Improved Clay Cookstove on the Perceived Respiratory Health Conditions of Mothers in Selected Households of Brgy. Santa Cruz in Sto. Tomas, Batangas” by health sciences seniors Benedicto Aguilar, Zenas Apal, Rizza De Jesus, Monica Erni, Karina Lipardo, Janine Rafael, Lance Sese. Third is “Faultless: An Anti-rape Culture thesis” by information design senior Marguerite Ocampo. The fourth Ascend Award winner is “BeHearty Banana Flour Social Enterprise” by management engineering seniors Regina Andaya, Joseph Pizarro and Ryan Yu, and management (honors) seniors Germaine Kaw, Nicolo Odulio and Gillian Pua.

Lipardo says that her group was inspired by another group of health sciences majors who had won the award a year earlier. Lipardo said that her group wanted to do an “interventional study” that would have a positive impact on the health of the community. They did this by using biomass fuels indoors for cooking and studying its effects on respiratory health. She emphasized that, to [her group], it was not about winning the award, but helping their partner community. “We were so touched by their responses of gratitude for helping improve their family’s health,” she says. “At that point, we felt like we had already won.”

“[The Ascend Award] will always be about inspiring others and extending our service to society,” Lipardo explains.

The Ascend Award is also different because it has tangible benefits. For instance, winners could receive funding which will allow them to continue their project even after they graduate. Project Laan, for example, a previous winner that started out as a class project, has now grown into a sustainable organization. According to its website, Project Laan seeks to improve the health of Filipinos by harnessing the power of innovation through social media.

“The Ascend Award [allows] your project to go out of the classroom and be in a more real-life setting,” Castillo says. He mentions recognition in conferences, citation of the students’ papers in academic journals and receiving funding from grant giving bodies as examples of the myriad of benefits that accompany this award.

Relevance to student body

While these awards are prestigious and sought after by graduating students, most students only discover them during their senior year. It is rare for freshmen, sophomores and juniors to know about these awards, as they are commonly marketed only to seniors.

Assistant to the ADSA Cholo Mallillin explains that students would know about these awards if they had been active in areas of leadership and service. Furthermore, he mentions that the school sends out announcements very early in the school year through a collaborative effort of the ADSA, OSA, Office of College Athletics and The GUIDON.

He mentions that the Ascend Award, in particular, is specifically marketed to students because the school wants to guide the students’ theses and studies with the award’s values in mind. “Very early on in the school year, meron nang memo to the faculty: ‘Please direct your students’ research and projects [so that] the end goal is [for] it [to] become a project that engages in socio-civic responsibility and national development,’” he says.

However, both Mallillin and Castillo emphasize that the nomination process is not exclusive to the LS faculty and staff. In fact, there have been many bulletins and brochures posted outside ADSA and the OSA that specifically call for students to nominate deserving recipients for these awards.

Mallillin concedes that in past years, the awards had only been promoted when the school started calling for nominees. He suggests a program where, in the beginning of the school year, due recognition is given to previous awardees to show students, especially freshmen, that the Ateneo has a culture of leadership and service.

“It’s supposed to be an ongoing marketing campaign to really produce the best exemplars of student leaders,” Mallillin says. “[It is really our goal] to push for the marketing of [this] particular set of awards.”

Mallilin says that the relevance of these awards is rooted in the Ateneo’s culture of excellence. He says that the value of being “men and women for others” and being “in the service of the greater good and the nation” has been at the forefront from the time University President Jose Ramon Villarin, SJ, assumed office. “[Villarin] made [the vision and mission] more real.”

Says Mallillin: “We want to make the awards more engaging and more attractive to students [so] that they see it as an end goal—not [just] to win the award, but to basically live out the ideals of the school.”

The names of distinction

By Alex A. Bichara

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Loyola Schools Awards for the Arts (LSAA)

The LSAAs are conferred to graduating students of the Loyola Schools for their outstanding work in various fields of art. These fields include, but are not limited to, creative writing, theatre arts, screen arts, visual arts, music and dance.

These awards are applied for. Applicants present their creative portfolios and two recommendation letters, and the LSAA committee decides which students get awarded.

The LSAA committee for academic year 2014 to 2015 featured 22 members, including Alvin Yapan, PhD, Allan Popa, Belinda Adora and Jayson Jacobo, PhD. [/two-columns] [two-columns]

Loyola Schools Awards for Leadership and Service (LSALS)

The LSALS gives distinction to Atenean students and student efforts in the name of positive leadership and the service of others. These awards are given to individuals, groups, group projects and activities. These awards aim to inspire others to follow in awardees’ footsteps to contribute and give hope to the national community.

Nomination forms for the LSALS are available online and at the Associate Dean for Student Affairs (ADSA) Office. [/two-columns][/columns] [columns][two-columns]

Ateneo Socio-Civic Engagement for National Development (Ascend) Awards

The Ascend awards acknowledge outstanding undergraduate and graduate level research papers and projects that demonstrate the students’ discipline mastery while also addressing social issues outside of the Ateneo.

Nomination forms for the Ascend Awards may also be obtained online and at the ADSA Office.[/two-columns] [two-columns]

The GUIDON-Moro Lorenzo Awards for Sports

The GUIDON-Moro Lorenzo Awards for Sports are given to student-athletes who demonstrate exceptional skill at their sport. Besides exhibiting athletic excellence, the athletes must also show sportsmanship and grace in victory. The award is conferred to the Sportsman and the Sportswoman of the Year.

The GUIDON-Moro Lorenzo Awards for Sports committee decides whom to give the awards to.[/two-columns][/columns] [columns][two-columns]

Ambrosio Padilla Athlete of the Year

This award is given to student-athletes who embody the spirit of mens sana in corpore sano or “a sound mind in a sound body.” Student-athletes who are given this award excel both in the athletic and academic arenas, much like Ambrosio Padilla (AB ’30), an Ateneo alumnus who graduated summa cum laude and led the Ateneo Blue Eagles to the National Collegiate Athletic Association championship.

The Ambrosio Padilla Athlete of the Year committee decides whom to award.