VICE PRESIDENT for the Loyola Schools (VPLS) Maria Luz C. Vilches, PhD has expressed her plan to focus on four key areas during her term: curriculum, research, outreach, and internationalization.

However, Vilches said she would retain some of the policies put into place by her predecessor. In an interview with The GUIDON, Vilches said that the previous administration of John Paul C. Vergara, PhD left the Loyola Schools in a good state and she wants to continue this.

“Whatever is good that has been done, you just have to continue with it. It’s not a matter of ‘it’s my administration, it was his administration.’ I think that what is good for the Loyola Schools is something that any administration, at a certain time, should be able to do,” Vilches said.

The new core curriculum

Vilches said that issues with the new core curriculum will be addressed by the newly created Associate Dean for the Core Curriculum (ADCC). Recently appointed ADCC Benjamin Tolosa, PhD is in charge of addressing the adjustments caused by the change of the curriculum, of shepherding its implementation and development.

“This first semester, [the ADCC is] going to be busy managing the preparations for the implementation of the new core curriculum, which is really a way of building on what was already done during the term of Dr. Vergara,” said Vilches.

“We want that office to make sure that these things are done properly. We want to be more deliberate about it, and pay attention to things like [training] faculty. Somebody has to bring this all together, to one coherent theme and make sure that the course objectives are met,” Vergara said.

Collaborative opportunities

Vilches said that although plans for curriculum, research, outreach, and internationalization are tackled individually, the efforts in each actually support each other.

In terms of research and outreach, Vilches envisions more faculty collaborative projects and publications. There will also be more infrastructure support for research such as two additional floors in CTC for SOSE multi-disciplinary labs and sandboxes in Aréte.

“The sandboxes are places where faculty and other collaborators could generate ideas and harness creativity in addressing ‘wicked’ or complex problems in our society and turn such efforts into publishable work,” Vilches said.

She added that research is relevant in the different disciplines and that continuing research work is important because of its social impact.

“We shall increase internal budget allocation for research and foster greater influx of external funding for research. We aim at doing research not just because it is called for by the disciplines, but because [it is] relevant to society,” she said.

She will also work on a second “Agenda for Hope” in time for the University’s 160th anniversary as an institution in 2019. The first one was made in 2009, during the 150th anniversary of the Ateneo.

“The Agenda for Hope, part two project is a way of bringing people together in the LS community to tackle certain themes – do research on these collaboratively and find creative ways of conveying their findings more popularly to the public so that the ideas that have been generated and the insights gained may benefit a larger society most immediately. The results of research can also be turned into scholarly journal publications,” she said.

For internationalization, guidelines will be made for the departments to have a more systematic and formal way of linkage with their choice of institutions. With this deepened linkage, collaborative research and student and faculty mobility will become regular, capacity building and sustainable.

“We have so many international university linkages abroad, but I’d like to recommend that each school will cultivate a much deeper relationship with one or two of these, so it’s not just the Junior Term Abroad program that they can pursue. It’s also collaboration in terms of research, it’s also faculty exchange, it’s also internship, it’s also collaborative programs and the like,” she said.

Thrust towards interdisciplinarity

Meanwhile, former VPLS Vergara said that interdisciplinarity is something that VPLS Vilches could focus on during her term, noting that her being from the School of Humanities is an asset to this.

“What makes most sense is proceeding with the thrust towards interdisciplinarity, and [Vilches] being a proponent for it. She’d be very good at it, [since she was based] in the Humanities,” he said.

He thinks that it is important to develop more interdisciplinary courses in line with the implementation of the new core curriculum.

“We are really in need of courses that integrate disciplines, because in many ways, that’s what the Ateneo education stands for. And we’ve been doing that already. With the new core curriculum coming in, we need more and more of those courses that integrate different disciplines,” he said.

Moreover, he sees VPLS Vilches’ term as something that complements the previous administration.

“I think there’s a particular caring character that comes with Dr. Vilches’ type. And that, in a sense, pays attention to things that I probably didn’t pay attention much to. And I look forward to that, more of nurturing,” he said.

Vergara said that coming from different schools, Vergara from the School of Science and Engineering and Vilches from the School of Humanities, also affects their distinct approach to things.

“I tend to be more science and math about things. But a more holistic way of dealing with this is also crucial, especially in an academic institution,” he added.

He also said that appointing her as the new VPLS would be very beneficial in the opening of the new humanities hub, Aréte, which is set to be finished by the end of the school year.

“She could spearhead [Aréte] very well. We talked about it also, in terms of administration, programming, what would happen [there],” Vergara said.